Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Hair shirt alert: The greenies gun for the Christmas lights
The Grinch, it turns out, really is green:
SCIENTISTS have warned that Christmas lights are bad for the planet due to huge electricity waste and urged people to get energy efficient festive bulbs.
While nobody can plausibly argue against "energy efficient festive bulbs," do the "scientists" pushing this story genuinely believe that it will increase the political support for conservation?
6 Comments:
By 
, at
Wed Dec 24, 07:42:00 PM:
No!!!
This is how socially autistic these "scientists" are-
You know, "scientists": dispassionate objective observers.
But really people need to understand that it starts with Christmas lights and leads to prohibitions on barbeques and Christmas parades.
All tremendous "wastes" of energy and insults to our loving mother Gaia...
Such hypocrisy. How many people in PETA voice their objections to the utterly vicious and cruel pastime of putting live lobsters into pots of boiling water?
Wake up folks they're coming after everything that is just plain fun.
NASCAR and waterskiiing...
By 
Kinuachdrach, at
Thu Dec 25, 10:58:00 AM:
While nobody can plausibly argue against "energy efficient festive bulbs"
Let me try.
Efficiency is a ratio -- some desired output divided by some required input. Of course, usually there are many required inputs.
Usual example is digging a ditch. Say the choice is a man with a shovel or a man in a backhoe. Which is more efficient? In terms of feet of ditch per gallon of diesel, the man with the shovel is more efficient. But in terms of of feet of ditch per man-hour, the man in the backhoe is much more efficient. Which is better? All depends on the limiting constraint.
Now to energy effiencient Christmas lights. (Let's expunge the politically-correct "festive lights").
Generally, items which are touted as "energy efficient" are much more expensive than their normal equivalents. If the "energy efficient" bulbs were cheaper, we would all buy them and there would be no discussion.
The higher cost of "energy efficient" bulbs almost certainly implies that more energy is used in their construction, or in mining the mercury and other components used in their manufacture.
So what we have is the classic engineering investment question -- is it efficient to pay a higher initial capital cost (or energy investment) in order to get the benfits of lower operating costs (or operating energy requirements)?
For Christmas lights, which are used for only a few weeks per year, the true energy efficient approach is almost certainly to minimize the initial energy investment.
To be blunt -- it is inefficient & wasteful to expend resources on so-called "energy efficient" Christmas lights. No genuine "greenie" would even suggest it.
By , at
Thu Dec 25, 12:25:00 PM:
Older readers can remember a year back in the 70s where President Jimmah decreed that we shouldn't hang Christmas lights after an oil shock. But the critics countered that eating one meal by candlelight would save enough electricity to run those low wattage bulbs for an evening. Furthermore, the lights are being run during the winter, at night(!). A time of lower electrical demand. ie They are generating the electricity anyway. Turning off all those Christmas lights would likely not change the CO2 out put of the power plants by an iota.
By Miss Ladybug, at
Thu Dec 25, 12:28:00 PM:
When decorating this year, my dad discovered the lights he had weren't working. He decided to buy new ones instead of trying to find possible blown bulbs. I mentioned to him I had seen LED lights (we use the little ones), but they were more expensive. Mom likes white lights. Dad decided on trying out the LED mini-lights. When he got the lights strung on the tree and turned on, it looked different. The LED lights, at least the white (not "clear") ones seem brighter than the old kind of lights. Took a little getting used to, but I think I like them better...
By Brian, at
Fri Dec 26, 02:41:00 PM:
Considering that the scientists weren't telling people not to have lights, but just encouraging better ways to use them, I'd say they were legitimately hoping for a positive response.
As much as I try and avoid slipping into sarcasm mode, it's hard to avoid that when people condemn Carter for trying to develop an energy policy while praising Reagan for ditching it.
By , at
Sun Dec 28, 04:15:00 PM:
More of this stupid green poppycock bull kaka malarkey from a bunch of stupid crazy ecofreak green nazis SCREW THE GREENS IM GETTING TIRED OF THIS GO GREEN CRAP
