Energy Roulette Week (The antithesis of Earth Hour)

A Reality Game for those Concerned about the Future for their Families 

Media Statement by Viv Forbes

Chairman, The Carbon Sense Coalition. 

The Carbon Sense Coalition today called on electricity consumers to boycott Earth Hour grandstanding by pampered people too silly to recognise the realities and benefits of reliable electricity.

The Chairman of Carbon Sense, Mr Viv Forbes, is supporting an alternative proposal that “Earth Hour” be replaced by “Energy Roulette Week”. 

Quote: 

The Earth Hour people turn off a few lights on a balmy night for a romantic hour in candle-light (incidentally generating twice as much CO2 as light bulbs for the same amount of light.) This is unrealistic green tokenism. 

The tokenism of Earth Hour is further illustrated by holding it on the autumn equinox, a day half-way between the temperature extremes of mid-summer and mid-winter. This is the day least likely to be uncomfortable for the beautiful people who give up their electric lights, TV and air-conditioners for just one hour, while they have a pleasant hour sipping champagne (and releasing its carbon dioxide) on candle-lit balconies.

 “Energy Roulette Week” is a reality game designed to illustrate what the future holds if green governments continue to undermine 24/7 power (generated by coal, gas, hydro or nuclear), by increasing our dependence on fickle winds, the peek-a-boo-sun or smart-meter rationing. 

“Energy Roulette Week” will give all players a real insight into what life without reliable electricity would be like. The lack of power can be due to insufficient generating capacity or merely the inability to pay the power bill. The result is the same. 

Everyone will be encouraged to play this game. It is only a game, but because of its realism, most players will chicken out after the first “black day”. 

To maximise the learning potential of the game, “Energy Roulette Week” is best started on the summer solstice (21^st December) or the winter solstice (21^st June). Or if you are too weak for a real test, join the greens on a balmy equinox. 

To prepare for the game, take a well shuffled pack of cards and deal out 7 cards, face down, and place them in seven separate identical envelopes. 

These are the rules for playing:

On the start day at 5:00 pm select one envelope and take out the card. 

If it is a red card, just continue living as normal. 

If it contains a black card (soon renamed by the kids as a “black-out card”), go out to your power box and turn off all power and continue living your life to the best of your ability.  At 8:00 am next morning turn your power back on. 

If the card is the Joker, leave the power off until 12 noon the next day. 

At 5:00 pm that evening take out another card, and continue this process until all seven envelopes have been opened. 

Because black-outs are usually unexpected, the rules do not permit premature preparation of the evening meal, early showering or taping favourite TV shows. And because those trying to cripple carbon energy oppose the production of carbon dioxide, the rules also prohibit the use of kerosene, bottled gas, candles, petrol generators or motor cars. 

Hopefully you won’t get seven black cards! 

If you had a real-life “black-card” day, it would be due to local load shedding, or widespread problems with the generation network.

If you have real-life load-shedding, so does everybody else in the neighbourhood; so the rules prohibit slipping next door for a cuppa on your black-day! 

And if in real life it was due to insufficient generating capacity across the whole city, the blackout would probably last for days, not hours, and your experience would be magnified 100 fold. (So no visits to shops, no food, no refrigeration, no petrol pumps or traffic lights, no public transport, schools or hospitals, no security, no TV, no recharging iPods and iPhones! Even worse would be to live at the bottom of a hill and there is no power to pump the sewerage away, it may come gushing up out of your toilet.) 

You may appeal: “But I can’t play – I have a family member on a life-support device.” All the more reason for you to play, to ensure you always have a charged battery back-up to keep your loved one alive. If not, they could end up dead in the real energy roulette being imposed on us. 

Of course this will never be a popular game because it is not pleasant being without reliable electricity. 

But there are thousands of people who are already playing the game in real life, every day. They can no longer afford the cost of both green power and food so they turn the power off; or the power companies turn it off for them; or the wind drops or a cloud covers the sun, and green energy fails; or its rapid fluctuations cause a collapse in the electricity grid. For them it’s not just a few hours of inconvenience - it’s Perpetual Power Purgatory. 

If this is what you want for your children and grand-children that’s OK. If you don’t, start waving placards that say “Stop the War on Carbon - 24/7 reliable, economical power forever”.

The idea of Energy Roulette Week was inspired by a proposal from John Ibbotson from Gulmarrad, Northern NSW and published in “The Daily Examiner”.