EU lights out action reduced consumption by 2.5%

international | environment | news report Thursday February 01, 2007 22:06 by bright spark

I am so surprised that Ireland had no word or news of this action. & certainly it is late to encourage people to do their bit. But today from 18h55 to 19h00 GMT a "pan-European" attempt was made to bring public attention to Climate Change. The group responsible "amis de la Terre" based in France began internet networking and horizontal communication with their peers in France and certain other states of the EU.

The Spanish state whose minister for Energy supported the call have now released details of how much energy was saved during the 5 minute "switch off" in the Spanish state. The reduction in consumption was an astounding 2.5%!
http://www.ree.es/apps/home.asp

THe group alliance suceeded in convincing the group "black out London" two weeks ago, but yesterday indications were London wouldn't after all take part. I had thought those in teh Lasc loop had been aware of the action in Ireland.

http://www.lalliance.fr/

in Paris the Eiffel Tower (the most visited tourist attraction in the world) saw its lights extinguished for the 5 minutes. Critics of the project suggested that a mass-turn-off of power and then a simultanous return to normal power consumption would cause a "spike" in national grids. Data made available from the Catalan offices of the Spanish "ESB" disprove that.
http://www.vilaweb.cat/www/noticia?p_idcmp=2256435
Sadly however the only Irish news organisation to publicise the event appeared to stick with the "spike theory". http://breakingnews.iol.ie/news/story.asp?j=184421706&p...zz3z9

Perhaps this action will be repeated again in the future, for as we all ought know Climate change is a result of "human activity". "Climatic changes seen around the world are "very likely" to have a human cause, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are expected to conclude later this week. By "very likely", the IPCC means greater than 90% probability. "
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6321351.stm

The action of "amis de la Terre" saw most support in their native France, Belgium, Spain & Switzerland.
Perhaps this hints at the ecological networks established on the continent, but certainly both ministries of environment and commercial media pushed the "lights out" protest as much as they could. With much attention also being paid to Al Gore's "20 myths on Climate Change".

So all we can wonder is -
why did Ireland not get involved?
Why was it not more succesful?