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During the annual ritual of Earth Hour:

...around one billion people are expected to switch off their lights for one hour as a political statement against climate change and fossil fuels, and in support of carbon cuts and renewable energy.

Bjorn Lomborg thinks the ritual is a feel-good exercise for the rich that does nothing meaningful to improve the planet. Whether he is right to make this judgement is probably too much a matter of opinion to be asked as a question here. But during his argument he makes the very specific claim (I've highlighted the specific part of the claim worth addressing):

In fact, a small decline in electricity consumption does not actually translate into less energy being pumped into the grid, and therefore does not reduce emissions. While any significant drop in electricity demand means a temporary reduction in CO2 emissions, this is partly offset by the surge from firing up coal or gas stations to restore electricity supplies afterward...

Those ‘environmentally friendly’ candles that many participants light? They are a fossil fuel — and burn almost 100 times less efficiently than incandescent light bulbs. (That’s why you won’t ever find a modern hospital using them instead of electricity). Using one candle for each switched-off bulb actually cancels out even the theoretical CO2 reduction; using two candles means that you emit more CO2.

Is he right that lighting one or more candles per bulb turned off cancels out any possible gain from turning off your lights?

Brythan
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matt_black
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    A bit of a false equivalence since major landmarks and office buildings don't light up thousands of candles to offset the thousands of light-bulbs they shut off. But it is, as said in the first quote, a *political statement*, not an actual attempt to reduce carbon emissions. – Kevin Fee Mar 30 '17 at 19:54
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    "That’s why you won’t ever find a modern hospital using them instead of electricity" Even if electric lighting is more expensive I suspect most hospitals use electric lights rather than candles/torches/oil lamps due to safety and reliability factors. – JAB Mar 30 '17 at 20:01
  • "...around one billion people are expected to switch off their lights for one hour" I'm interested in that claim, as I think that's probably an order of magnitude more participation than what really happens. Maybe "expected" is a wiggle word. – Ask About Monica Mar 30 '17 at 20:21
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    Closely related question: http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/8708/do-candles-emit-ten-times-the-carbon-dioxide-of-an-equivalent-lightbulb – Andrew Grimm Mar 30 '17 at 20:45
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    There are two questions here: The relatively specific: Do candles emit more CO2 than equivalent lightbulbs? And the question in the title: Do participants emitl more CO2 during Earth Hour? Which one did you mean? (The first answer only attempts to address one of them.) – Oddthinking Mar 30 '17 at 22:19
  • @Oddthinking The second. Do the actions taken during Earth Hour lead to more carbon dioxide emissions than would otherwise have been emitted? (actually, an answer to this requires an answer to the first as well, but the second is what I wanted to ask). – matt_black Mar 30 '17 at 22:43
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    The claim that Earth Hour doesn't reduce emissions may be a straw man: I yet have to see a statement by the initiators of that event that it's the intention of the event to save energy *by switching of the light for an hour*. I spent some time on their website, and according to the material that I found there, it seems just to be about awareness raising. If that is true, the premise of Lomborg's claim would be invalid. – Schmuddi Mar 31 '17 at 05:49
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    ...and if the candle I light is bee's wax instead of parrafin? ;-) – DevSolar Mar 31 '17 at 08:11
  • Closing while we sort out the claim. @DavePhD argues it is a strawman. I don't need to be in the middle! – Oddthinking Mar 31 '17 at 12:28
  • I think this needs to specify a locale, or specify that it is intended to be a world-wide average. That is because the electricity generation mix is different in different countries; it stands to reason that the amount of CO2 emitted on average to power a light bulb for an hour is different in Sweden (with lots of hydropower and nuclear power plants) than in the US (lots of nuclear and fossil fuel power plants) or China (lots of fossil fuel power plants). – user Mar 31 '17 at 14:00
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    @Oddthinking Other people claimed it is a straw man not DavePhD. And I don't agree because I *focussed* the actual claim on the issues with candles vs incandescent bulbs which is specific and not a proxy for some larger claim which would likely be just an issue of opinion and not answerable at all. – matt_black Apr 03 '17 at 18:46
  • @MichaelKjörling It would be perfectly reasonable fro an *answer* to specify that Lomborg's claim is false in Denmark but true in China. The *claim* doesn't need to be made overly specific. – matt_black Apr 03 '17 at 19:19
  • @matt_black: I'm sorry I am confused. In one comment you say you want to ask the big question (Does Earth Hour reduce CO2?), but your last comment (and Brythan's edit) suggest you want to ask the small question (candles versus incandescent). Are you happy with Brythan's edit? – Oddthinking Apr 04 '17 at 00:37
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    @Oddthinking yes, happy with edit. Sorry to confuse I didn't want to ask a big but unanswerable question. – matt_black Apr 04 '17 at 00:40
  • Its foolish to think people would light one candle for each light bulb. You can illuminate the whole room with one candle. And most people who participate one light one room and turn off the lights in others. But *even if* that was the case, the event makes a political statement, not a serious attempt to reduce CO2 emissions. – Polygnome Apr 04 '17 at 09:41
  • Is this question predicated on Earth Hour only being observed in developing countries? Surely no *developed* country still commonly uses incandescent lights, does it? And surely no modern hospital would use them for general illumination. – 410 gone Apr 04 '17 at 12:42
  • Why does he say candles are a fossil fuel? Are candles made with animal fat or beeswax really only a minor part of the total candle production? – GEdgar Apr 04 '17 at 14:57
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    @GEdgar Chemically speaking wax **is** fossil fuel. More importantly, it emits just as much, if not more, carbon dioxide as, for example, petrol/gasoline when burned. defining it a a non-fossil fuel doesn't change this. – matt_black Apr 04 '17 at 15:09
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    @matt_black: Errr.... no. [**Fossil** fuel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_fuel) is just that, *fossil*. Oil, gas, coal. Wood, animal fat, or beeswax are **not** fossil fuels. The CO2 released from them has, geologically / environmentally speaking, only just been bound. It's the CO2 that is currently in circulation anyway. The issue with fossil fuels is that they release *additional* CO2, which has been bound in times when there was quite a lot more of it around. – DevSolar Apr 07 '17 at 12:21
  • @DevSolar The CO2 doesn't care where it came from however you label it. – matt_black Apr 07 '17 at 12:55
  • @matt_black: The environment does care. And you can't change labels as you see fit. Environmentalists aren't asking you to stop breathing, or last year's leaves from decomposing either. – DevSolar Apr 07 '17 at 12:58
  • @DevSolar exactly how does the environment distinguish between fossil-fuel originated CO2 and non-fossil CO2? – matt_black Apr 07 '17 at 13:00
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    Paraffin wax is from fossil fuel, the original article assumes paraffin wax is used. If you were hoping to replace the coal used for lighting in the US with bees wax for 1 hour I think they would have to produce 25 times more beeswax world wide, and then use all of it on the one day. – daniel Apr 07 '17 at 13:01
  • Also I have an answer that's a combination of the old two, hoping it comes out of deleted post limbo soon. – daniel Apr 07 '17 at 13:04
  • @matt_black: Sidestepping the issue of how "fossil fuel" is defined or not (which is what this side-thread was about), are we? -- All the things named; wood, animal fat, beeswax, you and me; will *decompose* anyway, the bound carbon being either released into the environment or recombined to become part of another lifeform. It remains in the ecosphere either way. The issue with fossil fuel -- *as I already said* -- is that it represents "significant" (*cough*) amounts of carbon *that have not been part of the ecosphere for millenia*, i.e. *fossilized*. (t.b.c.) – DevSolar Apr 07 '17 at 13:09
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    (ctd.) *Of course*, cutting down all forests and burning their wood isn't a smart idea either, and I wouldn't argue the point. But your statement "chemically speaking wax *is* fossil fuel" is... how shall I put it? You wouldn't get away with that in class. It's just *wrong*. – DevSolar Apr 07 '17 at 13:12
  • @DevSolar I'm happy to be enlightened if you can elucidate the significant chemical difference between, say, beeswax and paraffin wax. – matt_black Apr 07 '17 at 13:20
  • @matt_black: Let's take this to [chat](http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/56722/fossil-fuel). – DevSolar Apr 07 '17 at 13:23
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    My answers never getting undeleted and no one else is trying so I guess an its beyond the capability of the site. – daniel Apr 10 '17 at 19:17
  • @matt_black - the environment differentiates if, to create non-fossil-generated CO2, you first remove it from the atmosphere before burning the produced substance, that puts it back. Net increase of airborn or water-dissolved carbon = zero. If you instead are releasing carbon that has been sequestered for millions or billions of years, you are increasing the amount of carbon currently in the atmosphere. – PoloHoleSet Apr 18 '17 at 18:17
  • @PoloHoleSet The environment doesn't differentiate. Your actions do. If you burn a tree, you release CO2; if you then plant a tree, you are, eventually, neutral. But if you burn an equivalent mass of coal and *then* plant a tree, you are still just as neutral. The environment cares where CO2 is *absorbed*; it can't tell where it was emitted. – matt_black Apr 18 '17 at 18:23
  • @matt_black - no, I'm not making that differentiation, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere isn't something that changes by based on my perception or whims. If you remove CO2 in order to make the thing you burn, you are not adding net CO2. You have it backwards. If you FIRST plant the tree that you eventually burn, you are net neutral. The tree that was planted to go into the coal was planted millions of years ago. You might be net neutral on that scale, but the starting point, then, was no ice caps and most of North America under water. We're trying to avoid a return to that. – PoloHoleSet Apr 18 '17 at 18:56
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    @PoloHoleSet If your actions lead to more trees (thereby absorbing CO2) then you have done a good environmental act. But nature cares not whether you burn coal or trees. Feeling good because you burn wood is nonsense; feeling good because you *plant* trees is fine. The source of the CO2 is irrelevant; all that matters is whether you do something to offset your output. If humanity increases carbon sequestration then it doesn't matter where the CO2 came from. – matt_black Apr 18 '17 at 20:17
  • There are businesses set up on this idea of carbon offsets such as this http://www.greenfleet.com.au I'm not saying I think it's effective, but it's popular. I proposed my own idea of purchasing barrels of crude via the donations and burying them, but my boss stuck with greenfleet. – daniel Apr 18 '17 at 22:05
  • @matt_black - planting a tree does not offset the carbon added until it reaches a point where it has removed an equivalent amount. Whether you burn coal or wood or something with a shorter renewal span does make a difference in the concentration of CO2. It may not the very instant it is burned, but it makes a difference. There's also more that gets emitted and released than just CO2, which also makes a difference. – PoloHoleSet Apr 19 '17 at 17:23

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