The View From Mars
Thursday, October 25, 2007 at 10:10am 3 comments (last by Jeffrey W. Baker)
Leading up to last weekend's Lights Out San Francisco, an event to push energy conservation by switching to more energy efficient CFL light bulbs, there was a surprising amount of negativity. While he agreed to turn out his light's SFist editor Brock told readers not to switch to CFL bulbs because they don't produce the same light as incandescent bulbs.
And while it's true they don't produce the same light, it isn't even noticeable in uses like porch lights, garages, bathrooms, etc., but even then there was still objection.
This morning, thanks to Scott Mace, I found this quote by author Jim Kunstler that sums up my feelings better than I could.
"The people I know complain endlessly about how stupid President George W. Bush is, and how badly he has lied to the public about this or that. But a casual observer from Mars would have to conclude that President Bush perfectly represents a nation that shows such a thoroughgoing incapacity for thought, and such an aversion to the truth about its own behavior. A people so hopelessly unwilling to get its act together deserves to suffer."
Something one of the United States' founding father's once said came to mind reading that. This Thomas Jefferson quote has been cited quite a bit regarding the response to 9/11, but the climate crisis is no less pressing of a national security issue than terrorism.
"Those who desire to give up Freedom in order to gain Security, will not have, nor do they deserve, either one."
Do American's deserve to survive the climate crisis if they can't even be bothered to switch out a few light bulbs?
3 Comments
Jamison Thursday, October 25, 2007 at 3:40pm
I would never argue that light bulbs are biggest change we could make to reduce our carbon footprint, but are we limited to just making one change?
Driving less (buying a hybrid or whatever else you can do to reduce auto emissions) is not mutually exclusive with energy conservation. I don't own a car, but I do have lamps, so Lights Out was something I could participate in and a coworker thought it was a great way to educate kids (who don't drive themselves) about energy conservation.
I look at Light Out as just one of many things we can do to reduce green house gasses. Not the biggest, not by a long shot, but one of many small changes that start to add up.
By the way, the automotive industry has made the same case you have to fight stricter environmental regulation, pointing the finger at the power industry who produce more green house gasses burning coal than what all the cars on the road put out. Its true, but does it let the car makers off the hook?
I completely agree with you about pollution from cars, I just don't think we should stop looking for other things we can do as well. I'd also point out if you're looking for easy things you can do to fight climate change, you can't get much easier than changing a light bulb, especially when Lights Out was giving them away.
Jeffrey W. Baker Thursday, October 25, 2007 at 4:25pm
I understand what you are saying, and I think that changing light bulbs is a noble and worthy cause, but I also understand the lack of enthusiasm around the concept. If every household in the USA changed every incandescent light bulb to compact fluorescent, that would amount to the same energy savings as reducing our driving by 1%. In other words, driving is 100 times larger contributor to our energy use than is lighting.
Stated another way, if the average car commuter uses a carpool just once in a year, he saves the same amount of energy as changing to fluorescent lighting.
If the city of San Francisco were to honor a Car Free Day just once a year, we would save far more energy than if we all switched to CFL.
Those of you who are already car-free, vegan, and live in a yurt, but still use incandescent lights, obviously should be thinking about a switch to CFL ;)
Jeffrey W. Baker Thursday, October 25, 2007 at 2:00pm
To me, the pertinent question is this: will changing a light bulb make any substantial difference in a person's energy footprint? The amount of gasoline spent driving in the USA every year is equivalent to 27 trillion lightbulb-years of energy. Keeping in mind Amdahl's Law, does it make sense to spend our efforts on fluorescent lighting, or could we make a larger difference more easily elsewhere?