On Twitter there are currently a lot of Christians and Muslims getting really angry about ways that Jews work around restrictions on work during Shabbat, and, like, honestly I do not understand why they care? Just a lot of non-Jews telling nice Orthodox Jews that they’re doing their religion wrong for no reason.
What is the impact on carbon output when you leave all your shit on?
I’m sure there’s an answer to this that an Orthodox Jew could give but I am not an Orthodox Jew, so I dunno
Very little. First off, we try to put stuff on timers as much as possible, like the hot plates we use to heat food. There are traditional Shabbat foods that get cooked overnight in a slow cooker, but other people use slow cookers too, and I don't see anyone complaining about the carbon footprint of crockpots in general. I live in Israel, and over here it's standard to have a timer in your fuse box that controls the lights in your living room, dining room, and sometimes the kitchen, so you can set it to turn them off at bedtime, and on again in the morning.
The other thing is that items that use a lot of energy either don't get used on Shabbat at all (cars, hair dryers), or their use on Shabbat doesn't differ from the rest of the week (fridges, air conditioners on a thermostat). So we may actually have slightly less of a carbon footprint on Shabbat.
This dumbass thinks a couple million Jews have a huge impact of some kind on our carbon output but doesn't have shit to say about the ultra-wealthy goyim who take a plane to their doctor's appointment twenty minutes away.
Also in general, lights take WAY less energy than they used to. Generally your light fixtures are some of the lowest energy things in your home. Fridge and AC/Heat are used highest, followed by the oven/cooktop (depending on frequency of use), then most other cooking appliances, then most household electronics like TV/Computer/charging phones, and lights are gonna be waaaaaay at the back.
(also various smart devices have a bad habit of being "energy vampires" so if you are worried about your power bill, try unplugging those when you're out)
Heat generation/mitigation takes the most power, and given you're not normally fucking with your thermostat midday outside of an emergency, it breaks no shabbat customs to just leave it on to do its thing. Because that is what you (and every non Jew) will be doing anyway.
So even IF most Jews didn't have timers on their lights (which is a more and more common thing to be able to get for anyone, I have half a dozen plant lights with timers that were all very cheap) or other things they use, this would be a MASSIVE overreaction to "left the lights on."
You can also now get a lot of appliances with "Shabbat timers" or "Shabbat mode" that let you not have to leave stuff on.
Just the fact of not using a car on Shabbat vastly outweighs any and all other factors
