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FIRST GUNS, NOW BULBS
Citizens, commence hoarding your bulbs:
Australia will be the world’s first country to ban incandescent lightbulbs in a bid to curb greenhouse gas emissions, with the government saying on Tuesday they would be phased out within three years and replaced by compact fluorescent lighting.
This’ll be a boon for bulb bootleggers.
Legislation to gradually restrict the sale of the old-style bulbs could reduce Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions by 4 million tons by 2012 and cut household power bills by up to 66 percent, said Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull.
Australia produced almost 565 million tons of greenhouse gases in 2004, official figures show.
Australia’s output of greenhouse gases amounts to 1.6% of the global total. A reduction of 4 million tonnes in one year will cut that output to ... 1.58%. Not a bad trade in exchange for becoming a half-illuminated nation of squinty mole-people.
Prime Minister John Howard said the plan would help all Australians play a part in cutting harmful gas emissions: “Here’s something practical that everybody will participate in.”
Because they’ll have no choice. Have any other leaders tried this sort of thing? As it happens, yes:
Cuba’s Fidel Castro launched a similar program two years ago, sending youth brigades into homes and switching out regular bulbs for energy-saving ones to help battle electrical blackouts around the island.
The idea was later embraced by Castro’s friend and ally, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez ...
Nice crowd you’re running with, John. Meanwhile, planned light reduction will doubtless be welcomed by the Mercenary Elite Age of Darkness. A non-profit organisation, surprisingly.
(Via Ken Summers and Raffi)
UPDATE. J.F. Beck: “Governments are spending billions of dollars a year on climate change research with pretty much the whole of Europe, academia, the left and MSM firmly on the bandwagon and the worry is that corporate-funded special interest groups are somehow going to derail the global warming juggernaut. Right.”
UPDATE II. Fairfax CEO (and darkness enthusiast) David Kirk sure has a way with words:
“Turning off the lights for 60 minutes across Sydney will enlighten people everywhere ... “
All of that mercury in burnt-out fluorescent bulbs will not be a problem. It will just be pumped into all of those thermometers that will need extra so they can read higher temperatures due to Goremal Warmering.
Posted by Some0Seppo on 2007 02 21 at 10:43 AM • permalinkWhat’s the problem? You just buy three times as many lamps.
Time to invest in lamp-making firms; or those places that make electric “candles”. Yeah, electric candles. Just imagine* walking around the house or apartment with your omnipresent electric candle like a moving image from A Christmas Carol or Oliver Twist. Yeah, I can see it now. the Personal Automatic Candle Optimiser. Yeah. “PACO™ makes it better to light an 18 watt candle than curse the pig’s-tail-bulb semi-darkness. It’s a Dickens of a good idea!”
[Note to self: Also invest in nightshirt and nightcap companies. Oh, and work houses after Australia’s coal industry is entirely shut down.]
* Not a Lennon’s “Imagine” crap reference.
Posted by andycanuck on 2007 02 21 at 11:08 AM • permalinkFollowing Andycanuck
Took a walk and passed your house late last night
All the shades were pulled and drawn way down tight
From within, the dim light cast two silhouettes on the shade
Oh what a lovely couple they madePut his arms around your waist, held you tight
Kisses I could almost taste in the night
Wondereed why I’m not the guy who’s silhouette’s on the shadeHeh
We’re already smuggling toilets into the U.S. because we have this strange idea that a bowl ought to empty after one flush.
And that’s green squinty mole-people to you, Blair. Wonder how Hollywood will embrace the New Jaundice?
Posted by Rittenhouse on 2007 02 21 at 11:35 AM • permalinkHmmm,
Lack of Vegamite in the U.S., lack of incandescent bulbs in Australia.
Flying cars sighted in Australia, Chrysler being sold by the Germans…..
Hmmm, where do the linkages lead?Posted by joe bagadonuts on 2007 02 21 at 11:42 AM • permalinkIf you heat your house with resistance heating, you save zero and probably less* by switching out the bulbs. For bulbs heat your house every bit as efficiently as the furnace. 100 watts more bulb, 100 watts less furnace.
It’s also free to leave on computers, radios, TVs, and anything else in the winter, because every watt might as well do something useful before it’s turned to heat, and turned to heat it will be.
To be fair, in the summer, you do save, and save double, because the air conditioning has to run about 100w more to get rid of the 100w or light you’re pumping in.
I leave the lights on all day in the winter. And I’m never sad.
—
* if the bulbs are where the thermostat is, it cools the rest of the house to leave the bulbs on, and so you actually use less electricity overall by using more with bulbs.This message brought to you as a public service by science, the part not yet taken over by moonbats.
Next week : all about gyroscopes
Jesus, Tim, steady on. If you disagree with a policy of John Howard’s, the heads of those sages at Larvatus Prodeo will explode!
Posted by James Waterton on 2007 02 21 at 12:26 PM • permalinkBye bye dimmer switches. Dimmable compact fluorescents do exist but unfortunately they are, frankly, terrible. They buzz and flicker and generally make a bloody nuisance of themselves.
Posted by David Gillies on 2007 02 21 at 12:30 PM • permalinkI see that they included a picture of wronwright in that MEAD article.
Never mind the dimmer switches, #16. What about ceiling fans? I recently put a couple of compact fluorescents in lamps where they won’t show, but GE says I can’t use them in my ceiling fans - which I have in 4 rooms in my house, and run all summer to avoid using the A/C as much. Apparently fluorescents can’t be used in any place with vibrations.
Also, they stick out below the shade on my desk lamp (so I didn’t use one there), AND they aren’t made to mimic sunlight (which some incandescents do) AND they give off a weird light.
I don’t mind them for some situations, but if I couldn’t get incandescents bulbs, I’d have to replace almost all my ceiling lights, run my A/C more, and end up killing someone because the weird light would not-so-eventually drive me NUTS.
Posted by Barbara Skolaut on 2007 02 21 at 12:53 PM • permalinkTwo concerns:
1) Isn’t this a massive windfall for corporate (OMG!1 CORPROAATE!!1!) fluorescent bulb manufacturers?
2) The discarded incandescent bulbs will release millions of tons of vacuum into the environment. CORPORATE lightbulb interests and CORPORATE think-tanks CLAIM that vacuum is not a greenhouse gas. And when the CORPORATE SHILLS say it, you KNOW it’s a LIE!
Stop harmful planet-killing vacuum emissions!
This is just a Zionist-Howardlerburtonist anti-planet SCAM to make a PROFIT by killing the planet!!
Posted by Don't Bogart that Midget, Comrade! on 2007 02 21 at 12:56 PM • permalinkSeriously, those energy saver bulbs throw off a harsh and horrible light. Fuck off Howard - we’re adults and we don’t need you and your mob of nannies to “inform our choices”*.
*this is the motto of the Australian media censorship bureau, though its cynical application adorns most government agencies aptly.
Posted by James Waterton on 2007 02 21 at 01:36 PM • permalinkStole my thunder. Will it be illegal to smuggle them in?
I’ll pay the fruit-fly guy to demand the government ban light bulbs and I’ll buy up all the stock in the country and sell them on the black market. What a profit :-)
Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2007 02 21 at 01:57 PM • permalinkBarbara S, I know what you mean. One effect this will have is to spur the adoption of LED fixtures.
Posted by David Gillies on 2007 02 21 at 02:51 PM • permalinkDavid, I agree. LED fixtures have their issues as well, but at least they don’t radiate at frequencies that can annoy people.
Not to mention fluorescent lamp can burn out in a spectacular fashion; sometimes you’ll get a tube that melts. Quite an interesting experience.
Turns out that (Wiki alert!) coal fueled power plants are the single largest source of mercury emissions.
But I see that even Wiki notes that used compact fluorescent lamps have to be handled as a hazardous waste until processed properly.
Does the Australian Anti-Incandenscent Light Campaign™ include the massive recycling program necessary to support the millions of used compact fluorescent lamps that will be generated every year after 2009? Or has this little problem been glossed over in the rush to placate Mother Gaia™?
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2007 02 21 at 03:51 PM • permalinkFirstly, has anyone vetted Malcolm Turnbull’s crazy-sounding claim that switching to fluorescents will cut a domestic power bill by “up to 66 percent”? Others who know more about this than I do have said that lighting is an insignificant fraction of the typical domestic power bill. Any thoughts, experts?
Secondly, this whole lunatic scheme might falter over the many exemptions that will have to be made. Play the medical card: sufferers from Seasonal Affective Disorder can claim they need ‘daylight’ bulbs, which as far as I know only come in incandescent.
Cuckoo, that’s gibberish. Compact fluorescents are about three times more efficient in a lumen per watt sense, so their power consumption is about 66% lower than incandescents. Thus only by eliminating all other energy use and devoting all your power consumption to lighting could you achieve a 66% drop. You don’t even need to know the proportion of total usage that lighting takes to see this.
In practise, in temperate climates, the dominant energy users are, in order, largest first: space and water heating, refrigeration, consumer electronics. Lighting is a minor consumer by comparison.
Posted by David Gillies on 2007 02 21 at 05:19 PM • permalinkThanks David. I’m working on a catchy slogan for the Lightbulb resistance movement: so far I’ve got “F*** the Planet, save the Globe!” Our symbol will be the Centennial Light.
How long before the fun nazis head around and start removing christmas light displays? Western Power (our elctricity supplier here on WA) has sponsered a christmas decorations competition for the last 10 years or so.
What sort of power do those little blinky lights use?Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2007 02 21 at 05:49 PM • permalinkShame on Howard: he’s caved to a swarm of moonbats.
Only time ever that I bought a “long life” bulb (to see what they were like), and when I asked for it the guy in the light store said—Why? They don’t work.
He was right—the light they emit is pale green and feeble- you need at least 5 to match one incandescent.
I’m starting to hoard, and signing up to cuckoo’s (35.) resistance campaign.
If its motto is “F*** the Planet, save the Globe!” then its mantra must be OHMMMM.
Posted by arrowhead ripper on 2007 02 21 at 06:29 PM • permalinkI tried replacing the main living room light with a flourescent a couple of months ago…James Waterton’s “harsh and horrible” description pretty much matched my impression, so the incandescent went back in less than 10 minutes later.
Other than in infrequently used rooms (bathroom, kitchen) and maybe on a smaller scale (my nightstand lamp is a halogen light), these things are downright depressing to use. I imagine the surveillance screens in Orwell’s Big Brother gave off about the same tinted glow.
It is going to drive a lot of autistics, such as my son, crazy. It is a oft-discussd fact that many autistics have a bad reaction to fluorescent. Whether it is the pulses or the colour, I don’t know, but just stepping inside a supermarket would set him off.
But it is not just autistics. Research in schools has shown that cool white fluorescent bulbs can cause bodily stress, anxiety, hyperactivity, attention problems and other distress, leading to poor learning performance.
This Australian Democrat-style idiocy it has lowered Turnbull in my esteem. Just like ethanol petrol blend v real petrol, it is something that we should be able to choose. I am happy to pay for the extra electricity to stick with incandescent bulbs. Will start stockpiling now because I will want incandescent in all those rooms meant for relaxation - bedrooms, lounge, dining
It’s crap like this that reminds me to check the use-by date on the back of my government.
Posted by Mr Hackenbacker on 2007 02 21 at 06:57 PM • permalink#40
ps
Paco,where the bloody hell are you?
Posted by HillyminxPaco’s left us for a little while for personal reasons, Hillyminx, although he didn’t say or even hint at why.
Posted by andycanuck on 2007 02 21 at 07:34 PM • permalinkTriple J ran a story on the light bulb swap out on the day that it was announced, and they led off by saying something like:
“The opposition is complaining that the government has stolen their idea on banning incandescant light bulbs”.
Instead of covering the policy from a government perspective, they gave Garrett airtime to whinge about this brazen theft of ideas.
To me, it sounds like a great bit of wedging by Turnbull. First, they’ll have the coal miners tearing at the entrails of Labor, now they’ll be forcing the Greenies to rethink how they do their preferencing.
I got rid of most of my 18th century light bulbs ages ago for one simple reason - the flourescent ones last a lot longer. I’m no longer going out to the shed each week to get the ladder to replace a blown globe. To me, incandescent light bulbs are like cassette tapes, videos and LP’s.
However, I don’t like the idea of banning them outright. Surely the market could have been harnessed to better effect. Something simple like taxing incandescent light bulbs like cigarettes would have done the trick without the Big Brother implications. But then again, the only way to wedge the Greenies and the Democrates is to get their attention, and they hate the word “market” and love the word “ban”. I am sure the editorial staff at Green Left are in a tizz at the moment over how they are going to attack Howard over this issue.
Posted by mr creosote on 2007 02 21 at 07:42 PM • permalinkYes Creosote, I mostly have florescent lamps too… but I have halogens in a few select places (e.g. kitchen) where I need the extra illumination they can provide. Who is going to pay to have my expensive light fitting replaced with a new one? Not me. Instead I think I’m just going to buy a whole bunch of replacement lamps for the next ten or twenty years of operation.
What’s next, forcing us all to drive hybrid cars, despite the fact I almost never drive anywhere and can’t afford one? Screw you, nanny state.
Malcolm Turnbull is either (1) a drooling idiot or (2) a rat cunning political tatctician.
Considering he is a self made multi millionaire, I suspect option (2).
Posted by Pedro the Ignorant on 2007 02 21 at 08:01 PM • permalinkThey’ll never take away our light bulbs here in the good ol’ US of A! I’ll tell you why.
If’n they took away the light at night we’d then have to start using tracer rounds to see where our bullets were going.
There’s 2 problems with that.
1. It’s kind of a fire hazard.
2. The tracer trails point right back to the shooter and makes it too easy to tell where the shooting is coming from.We may be a “law and order” type society, but it is definitely UnAmerican to help the police too much, dontcha know?
#33, 34 - from memory, lighting contributes about 4% of the average household’s electricity bill.
Let’s say you pay $150 a quarter for electricity, then $24 a year can be attributed to lights. If you save 66% by using fluorescent lighting, that makes a dollar saving of around $8 a year.
On the down side, you have to shell out around $10 per fluorescent globe upfront, replace light fixtures that are not compatible with the new globes such as halogens (the globes are also larger so they wont fit in a lot of light fittings), and they emit less light so you might have to install more light fittings in kitchens etc.
All in all, it’s extremely poor policy.
Posted by Art Vandelay on 2007 02 21 at 09:05 PM • permalinkI just did a quick walk around the house and discovered that I have 14 internal light fittings (including reading lamps and the like). I reckon my TV and entertainment unit draw more power during a bit of night time TV watching than all the light fittings put together.
That’s partly because both me and the missus are compulsive light turner-offers. Me, because my Mum grew up in a hessian shack in the wheatbelt during the Depression and is mad about not wasting anything, and the missus because her parents arrived from Croatia with the shirts on their backs and would never willingly add an extra cent to the power bill if they couldn’t help it. You’ve never seen saving resources in action until you’ve seen Mum slit a toothpaste tube open to get the last few dregs out of the tube. (and no, we did not grow up in a shoe box and have to lick the road each morning before walking nine miles to school barefoot in the snow).
Anyway, I think my 14 light bulbs aren’t going to melt the icecaps anytime soon, especially since once 2 or 3 are ever on at one time (only the ones in the rooms we are sitting in at night).
I think it is rat cunning policy. It puts the government on the front foot without having to spend much money. What’s Rudd going to do, except nod his head and say, “But teacher, we thought of that idea first. They’ve stolen my homework assignment!”
Everytime the voters change a light bulb, they can think warm and fuzzy thoughts about the polar bears and get a nice feeling in the cockles of their hearts about Malcolm Turnbull and that lovely John Howard, Saviour of the Planet. He’s so caring, people will just have to vote for him.
That said, this policy will probably delay the construction of our next coal fired power station by about, oh, three weeks. And yes, some people are going to be very annoyed eventually about having to replace some light fittings, but hopefully most will figure that out after the election, and the wife will just use it as an excuse to renovate anyway.
Posted by mr creosote on 2007 02 21 at 09:39 PM • permalinkWhat is the energry/carbon differential involved in manufacturing a fluourescent bulb with its ballast and gases as opposed to a vaccum filament bulb? What is the impact on the greenhouse effect by a) the removal of these gases from the atmospher and/or b) their introduction into the atmosphere from defunct fluourescents?
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2007 02 21 at 09:40 PM • permalinkExcellent points Richard.
Everytime the voters change a light bulb, they can think warm and fuzzy thoughts about the polar bears and get a nice feeling in the cockles of their hearts about Malcolm Turnbull and that lovely John Howard, Saviour of the Planet.
#55, people do not get warm and fuzzy feelings when they are forced to do something. For example, donating to charity (which is voluntary) will give you warm and fuzzy feelings but I’ll bet that filling out your tax return doesn’t (even if you are of the view that your taxes are being spent on good causes).
Posted by Art Vandelay on 2007 02 21 at 10:01 PM • permalinkSounds like the work of the Environment Minister’s old lady. She has a known aversion to bright lights.
Just what we need, another black market.
#57 - I don’t get a warm and fuzzy feeling when I am forced to do something. In fact, I get a hot and ropeable feeling and I have to suppress the urge to strangle something, like a hamster. Alternatively, I like the idea of tracer fire arcing gracefully towards the horizon.
But some people just love being ordered around, and being ordered around themselves. Just check out how the greenies live their lives - do this, do that, wear this, think that, eat this, drink that blah blah blah. If you want to see people living by rules, check out the muzzies. Those people, when ordered by the Bulbenoberfuhrer to do something, will get a warm and fuzzy feeling I am sure, even if I want to crash tackle every bulb nazi in the neighbourhood.
I like to think that conservative voters are of a more rational bent than most, whilst lefties are all a bit soft in the head. The problem is, 50% of the electorate are not rational types, so you need to rope in a few soft heads to get over the line. Hence you need the odd policy which will tug on the warm and fuzzies and tilt them in the right direction.
I was lounging around in a park the other night, doing the soccer Dad thing, when two bulb nazis in greenshirts walked up to me and said that they were from some council/energy company coalition and that they wanted to come into my house and take away all my old globes. I sanctimoniously told them to sod off nicely, and I’d already taken care of it, and I didn’t need any nanny nazi to do it for me.
Greenshirts. As bad as bloody brownshirts. All they needed was a bundle of fasces and their uniform would have been complete.
Posted by mr creosote on 2007 02 21 at 10:45 PM • permalinkDavid Kirk does have a way with words. The rest of the sentence:
...in Australia and around the world, about the imperative of taking action to confront and triumph over the greatest threat to the Earth in its history.
Did you read the comments over at SMH? Just chock-o-block full of good ideas, tips, and suggestions for how we can save the planet from its destroyers (we have met the enemy and he is us), bless their little eco-fascist hearts. One guy actually endorses using torture on his fellow Australians:
Why not encourage all TV networks to donate 1-2hrs of prime time - ad free - and simultaneously air the Al Gore film “An Inconveniant Truth”. If ALL networks did it, including Pay TV channels, it would be a world first and certainly draw massive attention to the cause.
A true fanatic (not to mention rotten speller):
Would it be appropriate to bring in new laws with sever penalties for “Climate change deniers” similar to the ones for people who deny the holocaust during WW11.
These people seem to me to be determined to continue on in thier old ways regardless or wether or not it destroys the future for our children and childrens children.
It is criminal in this day and age to continue the attacks on enviromnetalists and scientists and the vast majority of people worldwide deeply concerned and quite scared by the implications of out present actions and lifestyles.
Don’t know how much more of this I can stand and it’s only just begun. I mourn your tungsten bulbs. Maybe we can send incandescent care packages.
Posted by Kyda Sylvester on 2007 02 21 at 11:04 PM • permalinkI know we’re not addressing logic or commonsense here, but if I sign up to buy clean, green, softcock, overpriced planet-friendly electricity from my supply company, surely I’m entitled to use whatever bulbs/globes I want? And I can tell Malcolm Turncoat to stick his fluoro bulbs in a place where solar power is ineffective?
All one need do to understand the actual motive behind the viros rhetoric is to take note of the avocation of the use of force. This isn’t because they are unable to appeal to man’s reason in order to persuade (though that is certainly true), but because it offers a viable, to them, reason to use force. They do not seek power over nature; rather, they seek power over men.
We are in a battle with two different forces, both of which seek to reverse the progress of the Enlightenment and its child, the Industrial Revolution. Reason was the essence of the Enlightenment, and requirement for the Industrial Revolution. Reason precludes force. You cannot force a mind. This is why they demand proscription of all debate, and trials for those think to ask questions.
I’ve stopped thinking there’s anything funny about these little tyrants. They are being whipped up into a mob, with all the thoughtless brutality and inhumanity that entails. It’s so easy to be a part of a mob. One can feel important and justified without any of the thought required to be important and justified. Like that mini-dictator Kyda quoted, in all its ignorance.
I changed our bulbs to fluoro years ago. Most of the objections listed here didn’t bother me. I’m actually quite partial to fluoro light. Those things were dear and gave out pathetic light when they first came out, but they’re cheaper and brighter now. I haven’t had to change a bulb for yonks here.
However, I do object to being told by others how to live my life.
It’ll probably make the chattering classes feel warm and fuzzy for a while, and when the scheme proves unworkable, it’ll quietly be dropped. Kind of like how they were going to ban plastic shopping bags…
Posted by AlburyShifton on 2007 02 22 at 05:03 AM • permalinkSaltydog:
I’ve stopped trying to get folk to wake the hell up and take notice of the perfect storm that’s engulfing us.
It’s already too late to prevent the eventual bloodshed to come.
There’s still only 3 issues undecided.
1. How much time is left before bloody conflict is initatied.
2. Will those unable to submit to the tyrany of the irrationalist anti-humans wake up enough to meet force with force? or will we be pulled out of our homes one at a time and slaughtered in the street while the others peek from behind their curtained windows?
3. What shape the new culture will take once the blood stops flowing.
I guess if we need the WA government to tell us how many potatoes to grow in the West having the Federal government tell us what light globe to use is the next logical step.
Posted by Hump B Bare on 2007 02 22 at 06:58 AM • permalink
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First they came for my lightbulbs…