Remember the lesson of Dr Seuss’ Lorax (From Bucks Free Press)
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Remember the lesson of Dr Seuss’ Lorax
10:30am Sunday 29th January 2012 in Your Letters
RE: Letters in the January 6 edition headlined ‘Climate change is natural’ and ‘old bulbs are brilliant’.
FROM the look of BFP’s first letters column 2012, readers look set to continue sailing along solo, making sense of climate reality unaided by our local paper. Apart from Eric Alexander single-handedly holding the world to honest account that is [he accused a climate change sceptic of living in ‘a cocoon’].
But that’s ok. Humans are not stupid, and globally the 99% are fast disentangling the destructive deceptions that the 1% have been ‘selling’… along with all the fossil fuel. We are joining the dots, and starting to embrace a brave new world, post carbon energy consumption fest.
Talking of consumption fests, my daughters always love The Grinch at Christmas. Dr Seuss was ace at sussing the big picture. My wife nudged me to revisit another of his classics ‘The Lorax’ a while ago. Like much of his work, it was probably written for adults. First published in 1971, we all have much catching up to do.
Please read ‘The Lorax’ this year, if you will, because: “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.” (Dr Seuss) Hopefully readers will hold a steady course this year, despite the constant buffeting ‘wind’ from increasingly desperate science deniers. I very much doubt the silent majority is fooled by the vocal few – our local ‘burning fossil fuel really is good for you’ letters lobby.
Will future generations of Marlovians be impressed by the coverage given to those ‘clinging on to the fossil past’? I doubt it. Let’s enter 2000 now please?
Finally, a brief word on light bulbs, and good ideas. Our kitchen enjoys clean bright light from LED light bulbs. They use 60 Watts. Total. That’s 16 of them. The electricity costs us £10 for every 1,000 hours of light.
The ‘good old’ incandescent (i.e. more heat than light, like some correspondents) bulbs – which we are told can still be obtained via local ‘entrepreneurs’ – gulp down the same £10 of juice – every 80 hours.
Brilliance? Not.
Dave Hampton, Hyde Green, Marlow
Comments(19)
Bill Williams
says...
12:33pm Sun 29 Jan 12
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The problem with CFLs and simply comparing the wattage to incandescents is that they produce most of their light towards the red end of the spectrum, just on the cut-off point where our retinas stop responding. So you can have a CFL that has a similar wattage to an incandescent, but that doesn't mean all of that power is being converted into photons that your eyes can use.
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I would stick with halogens if you can, or LEDs, as Dave suggests (if you can afford the initial outlay). The latter are beginning to achieve a very nice colour spectrum and last a long time.
Eachban
says...
1:18pm Sun 29 Jan 12
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As Bill says, there is increasing evidence of bad science in the "pro" climate change sector. They are perhaps not entirely alone in this, but they are the reason ordinary (including poor) people in this country subsidise rich people and companies to profit handsomely for installing solar panels. Something the government is absolutely right in trying to correct. So here we have the Tories undoing a wealth transfer from poor to rich that was enacted by a Labour government - at the behest of climate change scientists. Go figure.
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So using the Lorax reference, one must assume that we all agree on that which we should care about - in Dave and the carbon free future group's opinion it would appear that we should care that we cease and desist from the consumption of fossil fuels. However I would offer an alternative - that we care that scientists, engineers and energy companies are positively encouraged to seek out and commercially develop new energy sources that are less polluting, do not carry the political and socio-economic costs and risks that our current sources mainly have, and have both flexibility in use and abundance of supply in their favour. How's that for a challenge for positive action?
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Incandescent bulbs are a waste of money - Dave is entirely correct on that matter. I tend to agree with Bill's view, as there is a light quality issue to be considered too. At the end of the day it is your money - I for one don't understand why anyone would wilfully choose to waste it though.
David Hampton
says...
3:45pm Sun 29 Jan 12
1) Can you tell me where in my letter "my vision is sackcloth and ashes" ?Certainly not in my brightly LED lit kitchen it's not.
2) You assert "there is increasing evidence of bad science in the "pro" climate change sector." Actually that is an inversion of the truth. The exact opposite is true. Try any independent source and you will see this writ large. But you don't want to do you.
Others, take a look at this weekend's Guardian letters page exposing Lord Lawson's deceptions. The letter is from some top medical doctors i.e. independent clever people.
http://www.guardian.
co.uk/environment/20
12/jan/26/transparen
cy-donors-climate-sc
eptic-lobby
But you guys know all this.
David Hampton
says...
4:01pm Sun 29 Jan 12
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I always look forward to reading your letters in the paper.
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I won't go through your deceptions one by one, but i will - by way of example - pick you up on some of your characteristically misleading grammar at the end of your second post.
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You say "The latter are beginning to achieve a very nice colour spectrum and last a long time."
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This sentence conflates two different points and potentially confuses.
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Truth is:
LEDS now achieve a very nice colour spectrum. And.
They last a long time.
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20 times longer than halogens as it happens, and use 10 times less power.
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So actually I would NOT "stick to halogens" simply because I cannot afford to.
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Thanks everyone.
David Hampton
says...
4:01pm Sun 29 Jan 12
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I always look forward to reading your letters in the paper.
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I won't go through your deceptions one by one, but i will - by way of example - pick you up on some of your characteristically misleading grammar at the end of your second post.
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You say "The latter are beginning to achieve a very nice colour spectrum and last a long time."
.
This sentence conflates two different points and potentially confuses.
.
Truth is:
LEDS now achieve a very nice colour spectrum. And.
They last a long time.
.
20 times longer than halogens as it happens, and use 10 times less power.
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So actually I would NOT "stick to halogens" simply because I cannot afford to.
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Thanks everyone.
Bill Williams
says...
4:42pm Sun 29 Jan 12
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"The latter are beginning to achieve a very nice colour spectrum and last a long time."
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The use of "latter" in this context usually refers to the second of two. In this specific case, LEDs were the "latter" in question (halogens being first, or former) and therefore my comments on colour spectrum and lifetime were correct and truthful (by your own admission).
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My point with regard to cost was more to do with the initial outlay for LEDs. Yes, they use a lot less power and will save money on electricity bills, but they are also hugely expensive and for many people, it is simply not an option to spend hundreds of pounds on such a long term return, especially when more and more people are renting these days.
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My point, therefore, was that if someone is not in the lucky position that you are and cannot afford LEDs but is unhappy with the poor performance of CFLs, halogen bulbs provide a nice compromise in that they have a nice colour spectrum but are more energy efficient than normal "black market" incandescents.
demoness the second
says...
4:55pm Sun 29 Jan 12
I do not like them Sam I am..
David Hampton
says...
6:07pm Sun 29 Jan 12
I cannot afford to spend £200 a year lighting my kitchen, so I chose to spend £20 a year instead. It's quite simple.
You are wrong that halogens are more efficient than incandescents. They are incandescents and consume same power.
Demoness. Well said.
David Hampton
says...
6:14pm Sun 29 Jan 12
His sentence:
"... are beginning to achieve a very nice colour spectrum and last a long time."
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could be mis-interpreted as
".... *are beginning to* last a long time."
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Whereas truth is:
They have *always* lasted a long time.
>30,000 hours instead of 1,500 hrs.
Small point, but it might have needlessly put someone off taking action and cutting their carbon (and their bills) which is always "Bill"s underlying intention.
Bill Williams
says...
6:14pm Sun 29 Jan 12
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I said " achieve a very nice colour spectrum and last a long time."
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You said "LEDS now achieve a very nice colour spectrum. And. They last a long time."
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They are the same thing. We are in agreement. As much as it pains you =)
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Halogens are incandescent, yes, but within a halogen envelope which extends their lifetime and reduces the amount of power required to produce an equivalent irradiance.
Bill Williams
says...
6:16pm Sun 29 Jan 12
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Um, when have I ever stated that as my intention.
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In fact, when have I ever said that energy inefficiency is a good thing?
demoness the second
says...
6:43pm Sun 29 Jan 12
Is this good or bad?
Bill Williams
says...
6:47pm Sun 29 Jan 12
demoness the second
says...
6:50pm Sun 29 Jan 12
Bill Williams wrote:Did I say anything about switching them on though? :)
I'd say it's good otherwise you'd keep walking into things.
Bill Williams
says...
6:52pm Sun 29 Jan 12
Bill Williams
says...
8:09pm Mon 30 Jan 12
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It's interesting that, even when I agree with Dave, I still end up with the usual round of abuse and accusation.
Eachban
says...
10:58pm Mon 30 Jan 12
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In the spirit of pedantry, I never stated that Dave's vision was sackcloth and ashes as he suggests I did. I said it had the whiff of sackcloth and ash about it.
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On the dodgy science I was making an (clearly too) oblique reference to the UEA email fiasco where they (some of the leading lights of the AGW hypothesis) discussed fudging figures and employing other highly *unscientific* subterfuges. In DH's world this didn't happen because there was a cover up, sorry inquest, that decided these were just honest chaps trying their very best to do the right thing, and they were jolly good sports about it, and it is all OK. I also suggested this questionable behaviour isn't unique to them, but needless to say that didn't register with our local carbon crusader.
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He also declined to address the wealth transfer issue - perhaps because he benefits from it personally, but I would prefer to believe it is simply because he knows it is true.
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Yes LEDs are the future of lighting (until some whizzbang comes up with something even better) BUT they are blummin expensive now, so for many they are not the right answer now. In which case ANYTHING that isn't an Edison bulb is better. And yes I understand (and employ) concepts such as payback, return on capital, life cycle costing and many other doohickeys of that nature.
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Some people have to go round the Monopoly board throwing the dice, not everybody gets to pick up the 'move straight to Go, collect £200' card every turn. Dave - you really should try much harder to be less preachy.
Bill Williams
says...
9:35am Tue 31 Jan 12
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I must say, it is very amusing to see people claiming that domestic PV is worthwhile in the UK and then forcing the government to keep the hugely inflated subsidies in place because, well, it's not worth it without them.
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Similarly, as you mentioned, the cognitive dissonance required to ignore the 'climategate' debacle (I don't think I've seen any of the local alarmists address it) whilst simultaneously maintaining that "the science is settled" is truly amazing to witness.
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I always have a laugh when, for example, the chairman of Transition Towns High Wycombe demonstrates that he thinks the 'Greenhouse Effect' works like an actual greenhouse, but it is slightly worrying that such people get invited into schools and local government meetings to lecture, advise and pass comment on topics they are demonstrably biased ill informed and, in some cases, incompetent in.
Bill Williams says...
12:26pm Sun 29 Jan 12
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In reality, global warming ranked dead last on a list of topics US citizens considered "top priority" in 2012. Just 25% (down from 38% five years ago) want the president to "tackle" global warming.
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This is probably due to the continued leak of emails from the UEA/CRU which has shown some truly shocking perversions of the scientific process. Attempts to get journal editors sacked, or entire journals shut down if peer reviewed papers are published which go against "the cause", the frank admission by prominent alarmist climate scientists to one another that "they can't account for the lack of recent warming" as well as the purposeful attempts to block and delete information subject to the FOI act has given lie to just how shaky the "overwhelming" evidence really is.
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This, combined with the fact that global temperatures have plateaued for the last decade while CO2 levels have continued to increase (something that was entirely unpredicted by every climate model cited by the IPCC) as well as the increasing weight of evidence supporting a lower climate sensitivity to increased CO2 (*), is probably why the majority of people now consider the whole 'global warming' scare to be, well, just a scare.
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(*) - Climate Sensitivity Estimated From Temperature Reconstructions of the Last Glacial Maximum, http://www.princeton
.edu/~nurban/pubs/lg
m-cs-uvic.pdf