Pedal-powered Christmas tree lights Copenhagen (Hussein and Hillary will pitch in)

ZD Net Asia ^ | 12/01/09 | Martin LaMonica

[Libloather]

Pedal-powered Christmas tree lights Copenhagen
By Martin LaMonica, CNET News.com
Tuesday, December 01, 2009 01:00 PM

When you're the host city for international climate change negotiations, using energy-efficient LED lights on the Christmas tree apparently isn't enough.

The traditional Christmas tree in Copenhagen's City Hall Square will be powered by people, rather than a distant power plant. The square has been equipped with 15 bicycles which, when pedaled, light up the 700 LED bulbs on the tree.

The 17-meter-high tree went up last week during an opening ceremony in which Saint Nicholas climbed a fire truck ladder to the top of the tree and lit fireworks.

Even during the ceremony, the lights were being powered by the bicycles, according to a representative from the city of Copenhagen. Children, a mayor, and international VIPs joined in the pedaling during the opening ceremony, he added.

The carbon-light approach to lighting the traditional Christmas tree is one of the attractions being organized for COP15, the latest round of international climate change talks, which start next week. The purpose of these meetings is to establish treaties to limit the amount of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere.

Reuters has a list of the commitments under discussion during the negotiation, which include a goal of limiting global warming to no more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels, a "threshold that many scientists see as a threshold for dangerous climate change".

Expectations that there would be a major breakthrough in Copenhagen have been low in part because the U.S. Congress has not been able to pass an energy and climate bill that would limit greenhouse gas emissions. But the past two weeks have seen a number of political twists, summarized at the New York Times.

All the political jockeying, though, could have a real impact on green technology and innovation. For the most part, green-tech entrepreneurs and investors are not betting on having a hefty price attached to carbon in the immediate future. Rather any climate regulations serve mainly as a signal that the economic system will find a way to create a financial incentive for technologies that reduce emissions.

Another important topic for discussion in Copenhagen is how green technologies will be transferred to poor countries, writes Earth2Tech.

[ChiMark]

Are we on “Gilligan’s Island”

Oh, this will go far. Is this what we produce from Harvard and Yale?

[gov_bean_ counter]

I think Hill is better suited for pulling beer wagons...

[HiramQuick]

more suitable pulling a manure spreader on the farm. She has been spreading “it” thick all her life.

[freekitty]

May the Clintons be run out of holding political office for good. They have done so much damage to America. I am ashamed of them. They sell their souls to the devil.

[iopscusa]

I’d actually pay to see Thunder Thighs pedal that ecocycle for 5 minutes if she would repeat that epic phrase, “I’m in no way tirred!”

[Catholic Canadian]

Wait a minute, I thought Christmas was banned?

[WKUHilltopper]

What do you expect coming from Hoaxenhagen?

[Hardastarboard]

Google suggests a person can generate a sustained 300 watts or so over an extended length of time. I have no idea how much power is generated by the body to convert to 300 watts of mechanical power.

Go to the gym and ride the stationary bicycle and you'll see that producing a mere 150 watts (assuming the bike you get shows your effort in watts) will make you soon ready to puke. 300 watts per human on an extended basis is a JOKE.

From a simple engineering systems perspective, this makes no sense whatsoever. It takes lots of processed carbohydrate fuels to power the human body.

I was thinking the same thing, intuitively, with out the math. It takes fuel to make the machines that plant, harvest and transport human food. It takes fuel to power the factories that produce the processed carbohydrates, and then transport them to the stores, where we burn fuel to go retrieve them. And then you have to enslave people to ride FIFTEEN bicycles to power a puny number of low consumption LED lights.

These people are psychotic @$$holes, and they have to be stopped, or we'll ALL be slaves, not just the ones chained to the power generating bicycles.

[EBH]

Slavery is right. On a now defunct eco-site I used to visit, pedal power was a significant push, from powering lights to pumping water. Bikes, treadle pumps, windups and making their kids do it. While on some level a little work for American kids wouldn’t hurt them, but knowing what these pedal power ideas are...abuse comes to mind.

These ideas and devices were at one time considered cruel and unusual punishments. And yes, I can envision elitests “employing” folks to do this work at some nominal wage...

Is carbon-offsetting just eco-enslavement?
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/3788/

[ProtectOurFreedom]

These people are psychotic @$$holes, and they have to be stopped, or we'll ALL be slaves, not just the ones chained to the power generating bicycles.

Excellent amplification on my comment, HSB! All the energy to plant, water, fertilize, harvest, process, transport and store food -- then feed the food to people, chain millions of them to benches and make them galley slaves. We struggled for millennia to harness thermodynamics to free people from the drudgery of daily existence and now they want us to forsake all of our knowledge and return to primitive lives? These people ARE psychotic and without a single SHRED of common sense.

This is the future these lunatics foresee for all of us. Chained to the State and chained to the oars.

[Rca2000]

ALL of this reminds me of a few old cartoons in some ancient electronic magazines I had—and I THINK still have. The cartoons had something going on, like a computer or escalator, and a sign near it reading “save energy”. For the computer—it has a treadle that the woman was pedaling to run it—and the escalator had a man on a bicycle in the corner.

This was 1980 or 1981 IIRC...Elementary electronics. At the time...I thought it was funny, and an example of environmental stupidity—that would NOT be acted upon.

But here we are...what next, “flintstone” type cars for us all??

If we could only bring back Reagan....

[Nowhere Man]

ALL of this reminds me of a few old cartoons in some ancient electronic magazines I had—and I THINK still have. The cartoons had something going on, like a computer or escalator, and a sign near it reading “save energy”. For the computer—it has a treadle that the woman was pedaling to run it—and the escalator had a man on a bicycle in the corner.

This was 1980 or 1981 IIRC...Elementary electronics. At the time...I thought it was funny, and an example of environmental stupidity—that would NOT be acted upon.

Yeah, I'm late to the party but I have those old issues of "Elementary Electronics" and remember those old cartoons. I remember a 1977 clip of Archie Bunker on President Carter and if you replace "Carter" with "Obama" you would get his take on Obama. He made the point where we have all of these conveniences like TV, dishwashers and so on and after we get them all, they tell us that we need to live without them. If you go to YouTube and look for "Archie Bunker on Democrats," he does this subject very well.