Inconvenient Truth

[*Bob*]

Mockney,

All I (and I assume Geh and P-Folly) are actually waiting for is an improvement in the technology.. nobody bought a hydrid car 10 years ago because they were rubbish (and prototype-expensive). If all you have at home are standard pendants hanging from the ceiling and all you want in them is *some light* to fill them then energy-saving bulbs are for you - enjoy the financial savings and pat yourself on the back for saving the world.

However, if light quality is important to you then, like me, you'll be waiting a year of two for the bulbs to improve.

If it eases anyone's pain, I buy everything locally, compost, recycle, don't drive a car, work from home and hardly ever fly. My indulgence is that I just don't want to live and work inside what feels like the inside of a refrigerator.

[Mark]

I bought energy saving bulbs but as Parker's Folly said they don't work with dimmers which renders them useless in two of my rooms.

Something that annoys me is when you see Canary Wharf (and other offices) on a Saturday night with thousands of lights on. There are not thousands of people working at that time so why don't they turn the lights off? Makes me feel that my energy saving efforts are even more insignificant.

[capt_birdseye]

Give it a couple of years and you won't be able to buy standard lightbulbs anyway, so you may as well start getting used to it.

These guys have a good range, including lightbulbs suitable to be used with dimmers. If you shop around the products you need are already out there. It'll just take a while for them to hit the main-stream.

[*Bob*]

Capt B - these bulbs are just the same as every other energy-saving bulb. 2700k 'warm whites'. There is nothing better than this on the market yet - unless someone out there knows different?!

By the time incandescents are outlawed I'm sure energy-saving bulb manufacturers will have got their arses in gear and made a product which emits a pleasing light.. and when they do, I'll be the first in line to buy some.

[mockney piers]

*bob*, I understand what you're saying, but I never let that get in the way of a good rant.

It's somewhat hypocritical of us to sit here and condemn president Bush for not signing up to Kyoto protocols, claiming technology will save us (it won't) and then in our own small way do exactly the same "I understand the technology is there, but it's not quite good enough for me and my gomer bolstrood/dimmer switch".

If you put a single bacteria culture in a petri dish, a large but limited supply of resources, and a population with no competitors for said resources, the population will expand relentlessly until the waste products poison it's environment so much that the population plunges into steep decline, then recovers etc, resulting in a sine wave of diminishing amplitude headed towards a happy median.

Humanity is simply headed towards the crest of the first incline. Amusingly 500 million years of evolutionary progress has not given us the means to overcome the same imperatives as our bacterial cousins. We make the same decisions "consume consume consume" but all that progress has allowed is that we intellectualise it as a nice looking bulb or Tarquin's 'must have' nintendo wii.

If there was but one tree left in the entire planet the question is not whether mankind would work to save it, it's how many people would die in the war for the right to cut it down.

ps do as I say, not as i do ;)

[James]

Sometimes it's more difficult 'doing the right thing' than you think.

E.g. the Prius is made by Toyota, which I believe is now the world's largest manufacturer of gas-guzzling SUV's. But they don't want you to know that.

I also read somewhere that the extra amount of energy used to manufacture a Prius (with its two power sources) negates the amount of carbon dioxide saved by driving one. Not to mention the extra resources you might need to use to dispose of it in the future.

It's a bit like carbon offsets. At the moment we're being bamboozled with 'green this', 'eco-friendly that' etc. At the end of the day we need to reduce our consumption of resources, which entails something much more profound than all these silly fads: fundamentally changing our behaviour. But that's not good for business, is it?

[Chartwell]

Thanks for the link Capt_birdseye, I have the GU10 spots on two floors in my house and it's great to see that there is a green alternative.

I agree about the lights in offices, I think to some degree there is an attitude that someone else will switch them off. Every night I turn the lights off in my office and also the printer - although I have been told that it affects the network in some way - not that it's stopped me doing it. It seems to me that there is no reason to leave the lights on all night.

Driving through Westminster very early one morning I noticed that the spotlights which usually light the outside of Parliament were not on - so perhaps that is as a result of a green initiative? I wonder how many more places in London switch off at a certain time?

[*Bob*]

Hee hee.. nice rant, Mockney!

Naturally I imagine you there at home, in your teepee, wind turbine blowing gently in the breeze as you cycle to your allotment to harvest your crop of self-sustaining veg?

[mockney piers]

No way Jos?.

I think I even left my Musical Fidelity A3.2 amplifier on much of yesterday, thus being personally responsible for the death of at least 4 families of meerkats.

[bald marauder]

I agree with everyone - the alternative products need to get better (eg cars, lightbulbls, etc) - and we need more fundamental behaviour change too.

One of the things that really bugs me though, is that some devices really are not pracctical to turn off at the wall every night - ie devices that store digital security passwords (for connection to a wi-fi network) for example.

Were it not for this issue, I believe there is an amazing product which allows you to turn off ALL your devices on standby at the touch of one button. Not sure what it's called or where you get it, but I know it's out there!

As for the password issue, it's really up to manufacturers to get this sorted, maybe I'm lazy but I really don;t want to input a 16 digit password, which clearly I'm not going to be able to do from memory, every time I boot up certain devices.

Maybe there should be some legislation to outlaw the manufacture of such devices in the future?

[capt_birdseye]

The effectiveness of Wind turbines are vastly over-stated. If you live in a built up area such as ED you will be able to generate only a tiny amount of electricity, it would take you many,many years just to off-set the cost of having the thing installed.

Solar panels on the other hand...

[capt_birdseye]

bald marauder Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

I believe there is an

> amazing product which allows you to turn off ALL

> your devices on standby at the touch of one

> button. Not sure what it's called or where you get

> it, but I know it's out there!

Try this

[Joe likes dinner]

You can also check out some green acquisitions at the following sites -

www.newconsumer.com, www.ethiscore.org

[Huguenot]

Inclined to agree with Mockney.

If people won't buy more environmentally friendly products until they get a 'fiscal incentive' then we are ruined.

It may be that I'm further away from retirement than geh, but it'll be a struggle telling my grand children that I destroyed their life and their future because I was holding out for a discount.

[Parker's Folly]

I'm afraid that lightbulbs poking above my lampshades des make a practical difference to us. Its annoying and hurts my eyes and its an inferior quality lighting with a funny caste. I'm sorry if that bugs you, but surely if these clever people can come up with energy saving light, they can invent smaller bulbs too.

[*Bob*]

Fear not, parker.. when the 'next generation' energy-saving bulbs go on the market, everyone will be urged to upgrade the bulbs they bought in the first place and the skips will be overflowing with the old mercury-addled bulbs.. still all with six years life left in them. Hooray!

[geh]

Sorry guys its the way of the world - not saying its right or indeed I agree with it, but, if you want me to do something that I'm not inclined to do by my own volition then you've got to dangle a carrot in front of me!

Dropping say the VAT on more environmentally favourable products may tempt me to go that extra mile (sorry bad choice of words!). It would send out a positive message encouraging individuals to make such changes.

[capt_birdseye]

The old ones will be banned in a couple of years anyway, so you'll need to change your lightbulbs then. Alternatively you can always sit in the dark.

[geh]

I have a large warehouse full of current spec filament bulbs. If EDF members wish to contact me when their preferred bulbs are officially withdrawn from the market??.

[Huguenot]

Sure Geh, but I'm just struggling to work out why avoiding destroying the planet is not an incentive in its own right.

I mean, presumably you don't expect the government to pay you to avoid dumping crap in your own house?

What we're doing at the moment is metaphorically throwing rubbish over our neighbours fence, with the threat of violence if they throw it back. It has three obvious consequences:

1. The neighbours get heavily pissed off at us.

2. Eventually the crap reaches the top of the fence and starts falling back into our own garden.

3. Finally the neighbours come and squat round ours.

This doesn't require science, or debates about hockey stick graphs. It's just common sense. When it's that clear we can't support ourselves in a state of denial, we've just got to knuckle down and do something about it.

[spadetownboy]

Chartwell Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> I hope that your balcony doesn't overhang the

> street, Mikewbate!

>

> The worms need very little attention and seem to

> thrive very well on the organic bananas that they

> get fed as I never seem to be able to eat them

> fast enough before they go off - the bananas that

> is, not the worms.

do you need a scarecrow to keep the birds away.

[geh]

Huguenot Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Sure Geh, but I'm just struggling to work out why

> avoiding destroying the planet is not an incentive

> in its own right.

>

As I said in my earlier post, I?m in the process of making modest lifestyle changes as we will all need to. My point about lightbulbs is toungue in cheek and I will ultimately purchase energy saving ones (when improvements are made on what are currently available) but if the current administration or indeed any to follow is serious about their green credentials then the public needs to be incentivised.

I hear what you say about the uliimate consquences being incentive in their own right, and fundamentallty you?re right. But mankind is essentially a selfish and short-term animal.

My other problem is thus ? we as a country have reaped the benefit of an industrialised society, however our now post industrial sensibilities mean we are attempting to dictate to other emerging countries how they develop their industry. Kind of do what we say, not as we have done. Eco colonialism?

[Chartwell]

spadetownboy Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> do you need a scarecrow to keep the birds away.

The worms have a very safe three storey house which protects them from the weather and any thing that might want to eat them!

It feels a bit odd to be adding a bit of frippery into this heavy (but very worthwhile!) discussion. Maybe if I got glowworms it would help with the whole lightbulb debate?!

[Huguenot]

Well it's an interesting idea Geh, but taxation isn't pocket money to be given out as treats to good little children. It's a centralised fund to pay for community goods and services. It's already our money.

For anyone to say 'I want a tax cut to go green' is to say 'I want to cut healthcare, or teaching, or pensions, or defence spending if I'm going to go green' - it's holding society to ransom. It doesn't matter whether someone agrees with one of those propositions - it's saying 'I'm going to ruin your children's future unless I get my way'.

The argument 'I'm not going to do anything because the rest of mankind is selfish' is morally corrupt.

The final argument is redundant; it is most certainly not up to us to tell the rest of the world what to do, Kyoto has invited signatures and gained them through negotiation. The other countries have signed because they wanted to; because we're crapping on their doorstep; and because we can't see it from the top of our ivory towers, shielded as we are by our dimmer switches.

I'm not even sure what the final argument has to do with anything. For every 65 lightbulbs of energy used by a US citizen, 35 are used by a UK citizen, and 1 by a Chinese person. You think I'm suggesting China needs to cut its use?

I lived in China for 18 months, in the squalor and pollution caused by the west's incessant demand for low cost goods without the caveat of pollution controls, labour legislation or social responsibility. These 1.2 billion people are the slaves of the modern world, and it's driven by our incessant western industrialism and consumerism.

It's a problem, because they're angry about it now, and they're getting angrier.

People who are flippant about environmental and social issues just don't get it. We're in trouble.

[bald marauder]

Hey Huguenot,

I didn't realise that you were so empassioned and enlightened about environmental issues - it's inspiring to see - I'm not taking the piss, I really mean it. I work at an ethical consultancy - we try to make a difference by helping companies to a) operate more sustainably, b) involve their customers and employees, and c) strengthen their competitive position through their positive actions.

It's very frustrating to see that while there are a few companies out there who 'get it', most of them do not. Or if they do, it's only at a surface level, ie in terms of creating a new ad campaign to make them look good, while most of what they do carries on as normal. Companies will only really change if they can see that there is consumer demand and consequently profit in it for them. And until companies start to make it easier to shop and live responsibly and intelligently, most people will (like geh) just trundle along doing whatever is easiest and most comfortable for them. We need to make it cool to be ethical, not in a 'hippy' way, but in a mainstream way. Buying and behaving unethically must become as unacceptable as drink driving, if any long term, widespread changes are to be realised. We need people like you and DM and Mockey pushing the agenda at home and at work - so I hope you guys are all in positions of influence - I fear it's going to take a lot to win geh over!!