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Promoted Challenge!

10/01/07 Stan (Carbonrally) suggested this challenge and received 4 votes before it was promoted.

Challenge Activity

These people have all recently accepted this challenge.

02/07/08 The Carbon Clique accepted this challenge, reducing CO₂ by 1 lb.

02/07/08 Carbon Cruncher accepted this challenge, reducing CO₂ by 1 lb.

02/06/08 donna.vick_95050 accepted this challenge, reducing CO₂ by 1 lb.

02/05/08 taosti accepted this challenge, reducing CO₂ by 1 lb.

02/05/08 lynnomeister accepted this challenge, reducing CO₂ by 1 lb.

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Challenge Details

Nachos! Pizza! Beer! Whether it’s to see the football game itself, the New England Patriots’ pursuit of the perfect 19-0 season, the New York Giants’ quest for respect, or just the latest funny commercials, chances are you and your friends will be watching Super Bowl XLII this Sunday night. Our CO2 Bowl Challenge asks you to get your game on and your lights off.

How competitive are you? Unlike the Super Bowl, our CO2 Bowl is open to ALL cities. Take the Challenge, have a good time watching the game, and then come back here next week to check the Challenge map and see which city wins.

The Carbon Connection
Approximately 39% of all CO2 emissions in the United States are caused by power plants burning fossil-fuel to create electricity. The more electricity we use, the more fossil fuel gets burned by a power plant. And the more fossil fuel burned, the more carbon dioxide that gets pumped into Earth’s atmosphere.

Almost 10% of the electricity used in our homes is being used for lighting. Every time you turn on a light switch, you’re most likely using electricity that was made at a power plant that runs on fossil fuel. Decreasing your consumption of electricity by lowering your lights directly decreases carbon emissions from your local power plant.

Even the NFL is getting is going green for Super Bowl XLII. No, they can’t turn off the stadium lights during the game. But all this week, the lights in the University of Phoenix Stadium, the adjacent NFL Experience activity area, and even a couple of the big hotels will be running on electricity from renewable solar, wind, and geothermal sources.

Getting It Done
What we’re asking for you to do is to turn out the lights in your home that would normally be on during this Sunday’s Super Bowl. It doesn’t really matter whether you’re hosting a party for 30 or watching the game with your family. Just turn off all of the unnecessary lights while you’re watching the game. Here are some other ideas:

• Turning on the kitchen light to get more salsa during a commercial break is allowed. So is turning on the bathroom light. Just turn it off after you wash your hands. If you’re really hardcore about this Challenge and can memorize where you’ve put the bowl of chips and the remote, you might consider turning out all of your lights, even in the TV room. If you find your eyes are getting tired, turn on a light in that room only.
• If you are hosting a Super Bowl party, think about the little extra things you can do to save electricity. Your microwave oven uses the electricity equivalent of a quarter of a pound of CO2 for every 10 minutes of use. Your electric oven uses 3 times that amount. So limit the use of those appliances during the game. Plan ahead and limit your hot foods to the first half of the game.
• Can’t take the darkness? You can always burn a few soy or beeswax candles so that people can find their way to the bathroom.
• If you’re going to a party at someone else’s home, be sure to turn off your own lights before you leave. And then, when you get to the party, tell the hosts about Carbonrally while you help them put out the chips and salsa. Tell them how turning out lights during the Super Bowl can help fight global warming.
• For those of us in the eastern half of the country, the big game (and our big parties) will happen after the sun goes down. But we realize that’s not true for our friends on the west coast. For you, the sun will be going down around halftime. So, if you live in Seattle, keep your lights off for a couple of hours after the game, too.

Rules of the Challenge
This is a one-shot, one time only Challenge. The time of the Challenge is this Sunday night during Super Bowl XLII. If you accept this Challenge, you will immediately see 1.8 pounds of CO2 reduction added to your Rally account.

We hope many of you will accept this Challenge ahead of time. But maybe you’re going to a Super Bowl party at someone else’s house. You can’t know ahead of time whether you can get the host of that party to turn out their lights. We know you’ll give it the ol’ major league push. Give it all you’ve got! And, if you find you were successful, come back to Carbonrally next Monday or Tuesday and accept the Challenge to get your well-deserved, well-earned carbon credit after the fact.

See the Math
Let’s start with the known or estimated numbers:

• The average home normally has 6 electric lights burning at night, not counting the ones in the living room or den where the television is located.
• Let’s say that of those 6 lights, half are already equipped with compact fluorescent bulbs (see our CFL Challenge if you haven’t already started making the switch) and half are still burning incandescent bulbs.
• Assume the electricity use of the CFLs averages 20 watts per bulb and the incandescent bulbs average 75 watts per bulb. The total electricity need for these 6 bulbs is 285 watts.
• The Super Bowl (including both the game and the overblown halftime extravaganza in which we hear Paula Abdul might just try to tear off Tom Petty’s shirt) lasts about 4 hours. Let’s call that the length of your big party. That way you can turn on the lights to clean up.
• A kilowatt is equal to 1000 watts. Using 1 kilowatt for 1 hour is what your electric company describes as 1 kilowatt-hour (kWh).
• The 6 light bulbs with a total rating of 285 watts would use 1.14 kWh of electricity if they were burning during the party.
• A fossil fuel burning power plant releases an average 1.55 pounds of CO2 for every kilowatt-hour it creates.
• Putting it all together, you’ll save about 1.8 pounds of CO2 by turning off those 6 light bulbs during your four hour long Super Bowl party.

Don’t forget to come back to this Challenge page next week and look at the map to see which city takes home the trophy for carbon savings. Good-natured taunting in the discussion area is allowed. But no matter whether you’re a fan of the Giants or the Pats, we know you’re a big fan of Team Earth. Have fun on Sunday — and Rally on!

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