Today is 28th of February 2009 and at 8:30 PM to tonight it will be “Earth Hour”. “Earth Hour” started in Sydney in 2007 and in 2008 it spread throughout the world, and this year in 2009 organisers hope it will reach over 1 billion people in over 1,000 cities! This increased exposure “Earth Hour” has brought about more criticism. It is true that “Earth Hour” in itself may not actually reduce carbon emissions, this is due to the way power stations are run. Most of the power from power stations cannot turn off all of a sudden, nor can they power up all of a sudden, they have to be running at all times, this is called base load power. Base load power is usually provided by a coal or nuclear power plant and it can take days for their output to stabilise. Peak demand power is used when peoples demand goes above the base load and it usually between 2 PM and 8 PM, the rest of the time we only have base load power plants running.

If at 8:30 PM everyone suddenly turns off their lights, we won’t need to run peak power plants but base load power plants will still be operational, they will need to use the energy on something so the power companies decides to turn everyones hot water heating systems on early which are usually done during the night, this is done so that the power is actually getting used and not wasted. So in effect the base load power is still running, we probably wouldn’t be using peak load power at that time so in essence we haven’t saved much (if any) carbon emissions from escaping into the atmosphere

So why does one bother with “Earth Hour”? “Earth Hour” is still important because it raises awareness about climate change it allows citizens to show their governments that they care about climate change and that they want something done about it. It also shows other people how serious everyon else is about climate change, it might even convince them to feel and act the same. That is why tonight at 8:30 PM I shall be turning off our lights.

Okay anyone who knows my family (or at least my dad’s side) knows that we (or atleast most of us) all love our steaks! We have it almost every night, we have two freezers full of it and if the same people who know my family find out there is a war or a famine or something where food is severely limited the first thought in their head will be to raid our place!

I on the other hand do not share the same love for steak, infact I hate it! I am so sick of eating it, like I know your meant to eat red meat 3 or so times a week and I would probably eat it everynow and again because you should eat it I suppose, but I am so sick of my Grandpa in particular saying:

• Jake we’re having Steak tonight! (in an excited voice)
• Mmmm! This steak is so nice, it’s really tender and beautifull isn’t it Jake?
• You must really love that steak Jake because your not talking much tonight!
• I’m just going to look at the meat section of the supermarket. This is code for steak section and looking is actually code for prodding every single piece of steak in the whole supermarket… yes if you see like pushed in finger marks on your steak that was my grandpa (they have cling wrap but still!)
• Guess what we’re having for dinner tonight? Steak!

My whole 3 months in Europe I had just two steaks and I didn’t pick to have them thats just what had been ordered for me.

Well it is Friday today and I have the day off university, well technically it’s meant to be a “virtual” lecture online but I really can’t be bothered. I decided last night (whilst catching up on How I Met Your Mother episodes ) that I should probably spend today studying to catch up on all my subjects but so far I’ve ended up working on my blog instead (oops!).

I was so close to losing my whole licence last night on my way back from university. I was driving along a really quiet road where there is never any one on it basically. All of a sudden the car coming towards me flashed his lights to signal that the police were near, I was probably going about 10 km over the speed limit at this point, I quickly slammed on the brakes even though I was a bit confused as to where the car saw the police. All of a sudden out of the corner of my eye I see lights beaming at me from a driveway. It turned out to be the police and they followed for the next 20 minutes! I hate when they do that it happens quite frequently to me for some reason and I get really nervous (particularly if it’s a police bike). They usually tailgate me for ages and when it happens I go about 10 km under the speed limit lol partly to anoy them and party because I don’t want to accidently go a slight bit over and be pulled up!

I’m thinking about maybe going to the Camden show tonight, I haven’t been for a few years which is kind of funny as I’ve lived here for a while now. It will probably be pretty boring though and we will most likely leave shortly after getting there lol.