Sunday, March 09, 2008

The Harper Government made one mistake

They banned the wrong light bulb.

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

i have purchased enough incandesent bulbs to last the rest of my life.

Anonymous said...

We haven't fallen for the environuts either Joanne. We too have bought enough incandesant bulbs to last us a while also.

Bandwagon type intiatives don't impress me much.

Anonymous said...

Joanne,

With all due respect, your reaction seems rather knee-jerk. Having read your blog a few times, I have noted a definite tone of skepticism towards climate change.

People resist change. Remember the kerfuffle around seat belt legislation?

CFL's solve far more problems than they create. To come to such an extreme conclusion as "let's ban CFL's" without having the suitable knowledge to make the claim is simply wrong.

Energy conservation is important to us all whether you buy into climate change or not. We may be languishing under a long winter in southern Ontario but the southern US is in the grips of a horrible drought. Water levels are at 45% of their normal levels.

My point? Droughts can last for decades. Where will American states starved for water turn in an ongoing shortage? North. If we divert our water resources to the south, our capacity to produce hydro-electric energy diminishes.

Everything is inter- depandant in the end.

Further, oil will not last forever ( expect to see gas hit 1.50/ litre this summer btw ). As a society, it is necessary for all of us to contribute to lessening our energy consumption.

Cheers- Martin Knowles, Toronto

Anonymous said...

Martin Knowles, Have you studied the issues with with those bulbs?
Rather than describe your version of Joannes attitude, you would do better to address the issues.
And there are some.
For the record, you can count me as a definite skeptic.
This year, i installed a few of those dam twisted things, lol. Last week, i could smell hot wiring, thought it was coming from my computer, but eventually found it was from the ceiling light. I touched the base of the fixture and it was red hot. I removed the fixture and even the wiring in the ceiling was hot. The bulb fell out of the fixture, leaving the base in the socket.
These things are dangerous.
To equate the use of these bulbs with the saving of electricity to any degree and with knowledge of the inherent danger in using CFLs, is the height of folly.
Skepticism towards climate change?
I dont know about Joanne, but i am in that category for sure.
-Lee-

hunter said...

Like most people, I bought some of those twisty bulbs, and so far no problems. I bought them before I knew they contained mercury. Most people DO NOT know that they need to be treated differently from regular bulbs, so how many of them have ended up in our landfills? Where is that mercury going to go? If people in apartments do not have to recycle, you have to know those bulbs are going right to the dump. Everyone knows mercury is more dangerous than CO2.

As far as water? Why not divert all that melting arctic ice into big pipes instead of letting it just flow into the ocean?

Joanne (True Blue) said...

Having read your blog a few times, I have noted a definite tone of skepticism towards climate change.

That could very well qualify as the understatement of the year.

Joanne (True Blue) said...

BTW Martin, I have no doubt that CFLs will assist in accomplishing the environmentalists' goal, which is to reduce the amount of AGW by reducing the human population through safety and health risks.

Anonymous said...

Understatement of the year -- hilarious. Hahahahahahahaha I'm with you on that Joanne. Have a cupboard full of the incandescent variety.

Joanne (True Blue) said...

Have a cupboard full of the incandescent variety.

Seems to me there could be a black market money-making potential here...

Anonymous said...

Good one Joanne.
The climate is changing. What hasn't been mentioned the last few days is that the Ontario snowstorms of late( I call them 401 Blasts) have not affected Northern Ontario.Our total snowfall for the year is very low.I do not believe these changes are man-made(AGW).I just accept the changes as part of the Bigger Picture.

BTW Joanne....Lorrie Goldstein stole your line...."shovelling global warming'...lol

bluetech

maryT said...

OF TOPIC BUT

COTM, if you visit, the comments are on your blog, but no place to post a comment. Was ok this early am.

Anonymous said...

Reid posted this link in the previous thread about Fire Hazards:
http://tinyurl.com/3aocbr
“Ontario's Electrical Safety Authority will issue a warning later this week to notify users of the unexpected way compact fluorescent light bulbs expire at the end of their long lifespan.
... The bulbs come to an end by charring around the base, producing smoke and emitting a bad smell.
Compact fluorescent bulbs can come to an end by charring around the base.
That has scared some homeowners into calling fire departments, he said. But there have been no reports of fires resulting from fluorescent bulbs in Ontario, Olechna said.”

As to the actual benefits, they are dubious at best:
http://tinyurl.com/y4jey9
“If incandescent lamps are replaced by CFLs the heat produced by the building's lighting system will be reduced. At times when the building requires both heating and lighting, the building's central heating system will then supply the heat. Depending on the fuel used for heating and for electricity production, this may result in either a small increase or a small decrease in the total cost and environmental impact of changing to CFLs.”

http://tinyurl.com/2v3xh2
“As Tom Adams of Toronto-based Energy Probe points out, incandescent lighting — because of all the heat it gives off — probably contributes to home comfort levels in many parts of the country, particularly in winter. Take that away and you might have to crank your thermostat up another notch. …
Proponents say the minute mercury in bulbs is much less than the amounts that would have been released into the atmosphere by coal-fired generating plants. But if there is a mass conversion, this could present some disposal problems.”

Finally, I am reminded about the UFFI controversy of the late 70s and 80s:
http://tinyurl.com/2vl8af
“In the 1980s, the government banned UFFI.

Earlier, it [the government] had given people grants to install UFFI insulation, as part of a drive to save energy. Injected into the wall cavity, the product would then harden.

Then the bubble burst.”

Lawsuits ensued, and the government had to dole out over $80M to have the UFFI removed.

Anonymous said...

The legislation doesn't technically ban incandescents; it just imposes energy efficiency standards on light bulbs.

Those that meet the standards are allowed, no matter what type; therefore, some incandescents will still be allowed and if a producer finds a way to produce better energy efficient incandescents, those would be allowed to.

Joanne (True Blue) said...

BTW Joanne....Lorrie Goldstein stole your line...."shovelling global warming'...lol

Well, he had been known to read my blog. ;)

Anonymous said...

I'm a fossil and proud of it Martin.

Count me as one who grew up in the '60s who will lives by the motto(and popular bumper sticker of that time)
"Question Authority"

I've never believed the climate change hype. I went to school.

Anonymous said...

Mary T -- O/T but I hear you. There are always challenges when you move a site to a new server. What happened between yesterday and today is normal.

Essentially what happens is www.crux-of-the-matter.com has to be re-programmed to go to a new location. To do that seamlessly, Cynapse sets up a duplicate site at the new location.

Then, during the 24 hour period, depending on who your Internet provider is (e.g., Sympatico, Rogers, whomever), you will end up at one place or the other. The bigger providers obviously make the switch quicker than the smaller ones.

The last time I looked the correct site is now showing from my computer -- it shows the same post I have at Jacks about "Two-thirds think Harper telling the truth."

But, until that site is the only one showing, I can't do anything else.

In fact, I made a booboo. I put up a post this morning about Christina Blizzard being wrong about Eden High School. If that is the post you see, it is the old blog. I shouldn't have done that!

So, later today or tomorrow I'll put that one back up again. Luckily I saved it to my hard drive.

As Cynapse says, in future, when anyone moves to a new server, the blogger should just tell everyone they have gone fishing for twenty-four hours and take a break.

Live and learn.

Hear that Joanne? ;)

Joanne (True Blue) said...

Hear that Joanne? ;)

Aye, Mon Capitaine. I will learn from your pitfalls. :)