Global Warming is FAKE...and has been refuted time and time again by reputable scientists.

Screw eco terrorists

Pretty lights.

Ruh roh! Treehugger's gonna be pissed!

Pay them no attention - this is the same organization that kills millions of pandas a year and turns them into tote bags.

and while EVERY gadget is on in the house...clog the Internet with torrents and streaming video.

hehe. check out blackoutsabbath.org june 21, 2008 12pm-12am, shut it down (throw-back to the NYC blackout) and meditate/write your list of what you will do to lower your carbon footprint! stick it on your fridge for future reference. keep coming back to your list of what you'll do, this isn't a new years resolution, this is a shift in how we are with our carbon output in our daily lives.

I in no way support turning off lights as some way of changing the world, and that picture sure does look awesome.

But there is a small part of me that thinks, "now THAT is kind of a waste".

Just a small part though, the part that likes pretty lights is keeping him in line.

Hey I don't mind turning the lights off...I frag with my 360 by candle-light anyway. But my stereo, monitor, and 360 will assuredly be running at FULL BLAST on Saturday. Those items, and the thing in the kitchen that keeps the beer cold.

I'll turn off my lights and devices when Google turns off their server farms =)

damn, i have a xbox360 and a wii.. but only 1 TV.. what should i do?

Nature doesn't care whether global warming is true or not... species which can't survive within the current parameters will die off to make room for those who can.

Humans can either shape their future or let it shape them...the other species which can survive really don't give a hoot.

If you REALLY wanted to make a dent in electrical usage as a sacrament to mother nature, then turn off all computers for an hour. That's right. All of them. The main frames, the minis, the routers, the PC's, the Mac's....ALL of them.

I don't think that would go over well.

@chanmoss: carbon footprints are the new pollution credit...nobody pollutes less...they simply PAY for the right to pollute more. and the cash goes to Mr Gore and other like him.

screw going "green"

I saw a child's shirt at wal mart last night that said "Green is Hot!"

and I thought to myself...WTF...talk about indoctrinating our kids.

LET'S DO IT!

(you know, turning on all of our gadgets)

@FrankenPC: lol and all the computers and machines in the hospitals , and fire departments, and police stations, and...yep your right that is a shitty idea.

I say that during this hour of no-power, we line up these hippie bastards along the edges of airport runways so the planes still up in the air will have visual confirmation of where to land without sucking up precious electricity.

[www.theonion.com]
Awesome article about Al Gore and global warming

@Kaiser-Machead: Forgot to put in "and light them on fire"

FIGHT ON GIZ!
I'm pullin out all my PCs
Turning on my WiFi, & both my laptops
I'm firin up the TV & the home PC network
HD-DVD player.....woops scratch that last one......
Lastly I'm goin for a strut round my neighborhood at exactly 9PM with my solid titanium, gold embossed, diamond encrusted, electronic pedometer with built in 10G shock resistance!!

Viva La resistance!

Where is your fucking god now?!?!

I love Giz

If it's dark, how will I see to turn everything back on?

Crazy tree hugging hippies!

Aw, come on guys, that's just a tad irresponsible of you. I'm all for irreverent humor, just like Blam talked about yesterday in his moving note; but this is a little childish.

How about i tell both of you to cram it? That way i don't have to do a damn thing.

@Seiven: I don't think you understand what marketable permits mean. It means that there is a certain limit set on pollutants (CO2 in this case). For example, let's say the limit is 2 million tons. Now, 2 million credits are put on the market, and if you want to pollute, you buy from this market. The aggregate total CO2 production, however, will never breach the 2 million ton mark. You're are paying for the right to pollute, but it doesn't mean that there is an unlimited supply of carbon credits. With enough money, you could conceivably buy all 2 million credits, but then no other company or organization could expel industrial CO2 at all.

About the indoctrination, facts (and to a certain extent, a theory [the scientific definition of theory, not your made-up one]) have to be taught to children. Please do not tell me you're also one of the Creationists-in-disguise as "Intelligent Design" advocates who believes that children are "indoctrinated" in evolution.

@Seiven: Which reputable scientists have refuted global warming over and over again? I believe you're talking about climate change and not just the media-driven term "global warming." Imagine if half the world's temperature increased by 100 while the other hald decreased by 200. Sure, now we have an average global "cooling" and no problem right?

The whole thing is a stupid gimmick anyway. Does anyone really think that power plants are going to shut down for that one hour? They'll be chugging along at the same pace they always do, spitting out tasty emissions. So turning off your lights ain't gonna do a damn thing to help the environment.

I think they wasted more on promoting the stupid thing than they'll save by holding the event. Our local McDonalds has nice plastic window cling stickers promoting it, some of the local ClearChannel billboards here have massive posters for it (all lit at night, for the past month) etc...

It's hypocrisy at its best. Typical of hippies.

carbon footprint goes down, burglaries sky-rocket. Tree huggers rejoice, as do criminals. Until the lights come on and they see what they stole. Oh man, BETA-MAX?

I agree with J.T., turning off everything for an hour will save thousands of barrels of evil oil. You should encourage users to turn things off, not incite them to turn more things on.

we should also cross the streams right at 9PM

I think this will be as effective as the "don't buy gas today and prices will go down to less than $1 a gallon!!!! OMGOBGYN!!!".

I'm turning all mine off, and going to a bar for the night, seems like a great idea

Are you kidding me? I love technology as much or more than the next gizmodo patron... but that's a ridiculous thing to say. You must either think things will just sustain themselves or that technology will find a way inevitably if you're that short sighted. Or maybe you simply don't care what happens in the long run because you'd rather live comfortably. The truth is that YOU are humanity, just like we all are... and if that's your attitude, it only goes to show that things will not autocorrect themselves... because most people don't have enough initiative or care to try to make the world better.

I have some news for people, this is not the epitome of or high point of humanity... just because we have all kinds of consumer oriented devices to keep us numb and not caring. Not to run off topic, but do you realize that most people on the planet don't live the kind of comfy, priveledged life you do? Well here's a news flash, you may not be living that same comfy life set up by the generations that came before us for very much longer... this time of virtual prosperity is just a flash in the pan of history, you know. It just seems like you are hell bent to waste it... which seems astonishingly iconic of the present generations of priveledged people.

Everyone at work drop their pencils on the floor at exactly 4:45 CST. Who's with me?

@scoobydoo: The power plants adjust production based on the capacities of the electric grid. If the grid is saturated, then you're right, they wouldn't stop. But, now that they know there will be a severe drop in demand between 8-9pm, they can adjust the rate of power being pumped into the grid leading upto the 1-hour shutdown.

And if you think they're not following this development, think again. The sudden spike in grid strain at 9:01pm (at the end of the blackout) could cripple a grid if the power plants/electric companies are not ready for it.

what time zone are we talking about ?

Man, dumbass environmental groups like the WWF make smart people feel bad about caring about the envrionment.

I actually care about the environment, but when dumb hippies plan stupid stunts it sets everybody back. How about they try to convince retailers to give 20% off all flourescent bulbs for a day? Stores make money, energy gets save, and I don't feel ashamed of being associated with dumb hippies sitting in dark apartments.

I didn't know about this, aka no one does.

Please tell me I am not alone...

@elint6: How do they KNOW there will be a drop? They have no statistical data to base production on. They can hardly take an entire plant (or 20 of them) offline just for an hour because some treehugger may or may not turn off their lights.

Plus; I plan to turn on some more appliances just to compensate. I think I'll wait to do the dishes and laundry till 8:01pm.

This is soooooo funny. Global warming is a fairytale to scare liberal children into future Al Gores...

This is kind of stupid...this isn't just to save power it's to raise awareness for the energy issue...you guys are just blowing it off

I'm going to turn all my lights on from 8-9pm.

@woogychuck: I concur. But on an equal note: dumbass gizmodo comments make smart people feel bad about caring about the environment too. Like Seiven up here. I don't know whether he was just trolling (in which case I bit) or just a genuine neo-con. I didn't know they existed outside of Fox News HQ, let alone our internets.

Still waiting to hear from Seiven's "reputable scientists". Last I checked, and I check quite frequently being a researcher myself, all the reputable scientists are in a debate between the current climate model of human impact on climate change and the subsequent warming, that was presented to the UN, and the much more realistic model of even more severe effects, since the recent ice cap loss falls WAY outside of the current relatively conservative model.

So since the current climate models that show the direct correlation between man made emissions and OBSERVABLE global warming have yet to be refuted even once ('questioned' is different than 'refuted', to refute you need research and DATA, not conspiracy theories), then I have to assume Seiven is either a liar, or an idiot. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt, and assume he's the later. Or maybe he's just awoken from a 20 year coma, and still thinks he lives in a time where these findings were still debatable.

I have to admit, this is a pretty dumb idea. But it's intentionally dumb. I'm guessing whoever originally suggested it was pretty much just counting on attracting some attention and some eyeballs and creating a little "controversy."

That's pretty much what it takes these days - come up with an outlandish idea and watch everyone "debate" the event as well as all of their semi-related underlying assumptions back and forth, whether or not the event itself actually has any merit in terms of achieving its goals.

And I feel the same way about Earth Hour.

@Seiven: of course you saw the shirt at wal-mart. who is more 'green' then them?

Reading these comments reminded me of when *I* was twelve too: "those pesky grown ups don't know anything I can TOO play with fire and gasoline!"

Enjoy it while it lasts kiddies!

reputable scientists my ass-scientists getting huge grants to study a myth/urban legend!

The last time this was tried in the UK (which failed) I seem to recall the National Grid saying that they actually increased power output to cope with the load when everything was turned back on.

So, the result was more generators online than if the blackout idea hadn't happened.

And I agree, that pic is great, there's more here...

[www.flickr.com]