Gordon Brown or David Cameron was alarmed at the possibility of their rival stealing a march in the first media fistfight between both camps. The two politicians needed to punch their green credentials at the public. Cameron’s nonsense on aircraft taxes was launched on Sunday to derision and environmentalist applause. An early headline that can be reversed if the public’s tolerance for more tax withers: a likely outcome under Brown.
How did the Chancellor respond, now that he has appropriated Bambi’s teeth prior to his seat? He promised to phase out old-style lightbulbs and subsidise home insulation:
The Chancellor promised that grants will be available to have every home insulated in the next 10 years.
He also wants to phase out wasteful old-fashioned lightbulbs by 2011 and remove ‘standby’ functions from TVs and DVD players that use electricity when left on.
The prudent Chancellor, ever unwasteful of political manure, was recycling spin from Europe and Australia.
Following measures recently adopted by the Australian government to scrap incandescent light bulbs from Australian homes within three years the Spring Summit on 9 March urged the Commission to “rapidly submit proposals” on:
* Energy savings from office and street lighting “to be adopted by 2008”, and;
* “incandescent lamps and other forms of lighting in private households by 2009”.Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern was quoted by Reuters as saying: “We are very impressed by the Australians and before we came to the summit, we had already been in touch with them and looking at the issue.”
The old story of European projects repackaged for domestic consumption, as ignored by your mainstream media. The Chancellor was quite clear that his green policies were designed to set new regulations and taxes within a European framework, extending and affirming our regulatory state in verdant wrapping.
All very exasperating bits of (old) news, but what I’m increasingly wanting to know is, which grassroots organisations against this climate change bollocks are there that I/we can support?
No idea James. Are there any?
My take on this one is how many lampshades, hey lamps themselves, are we going to have to replace to accomodate these “Green ” lightbulbs?
The fucking things stick up over the top of the shades and are esthetically ugly.
Plus they are so dim you cant read by them!
Brave New World indeed!
The lights really are starting to go out in the UK. These two seem to be promoting a program that penalises the freedom of movement, one of the cornerstones of entrepreneurialism and production. As far as I can see it, these policies will inevitably lead to a slowdown combined with a rise in bureaucracy, funded by increased taxation. The consequence of these forces is that investors – particularly foreign – will distribute capital out of the UK to foreign markets; young people with entrepreneurial instincts will leave; and the brain drain will continue.
What worries me most of all is the above, combined with islamic terrorism and ineffectual immigration controls, combined with the loss of sovereignty to an unelected European Parliament. Talk about sleepwalking to disaster.
I am lucky – have an Aussie passport – and have already scheduled to leave England in late 2008. I doubt that I am alone.
Three thoughts:
(i) The energy saving from lighting and stand-by devices does have to take account, for those of us with thermostaticly controlled central heating, of the fact that the winter-time saving is only that of the cost per kilowatt-hour between say gas and electricity. However, in the summer this reduction in the actual saving does not apply, especially if one uses air-conditioning. So it’s really only important to switch off unnecessary lights etc when your heating is not being run.
(ii) Electricity consumption on standby can be very low. My latest mobile phone charger (when not charging) does not register on my “Plug-in Power & Energy Monitor”, neither for power consumption nor for measurement of the power factor. The same applies to my bedside clock radio when the radio is off; it only uses around 1/2 Watt with radio on. My recently purchased TV and Video/DVD together use 6 Watts on standby. That’s slightly disappointing and I’m sure better could be done, even with the ability to activate them through the remote infra-red control. The 6W TV/DVD costs just over £4 per year in electricity, before mitigation by the useful heating effect outside of summertime. This is a matter for manufacturers to sort, not for neo-religious hectoring of the people.
(iii) Changing over to more efficient lightbulbs is happening anyway, now that the purchase price and lifetime do make it a true saving. On top of that, one has to change them less often, which is a real boon to the elderly, who quite rightly find changing ceiling lamps difficult and slightly dangerous. And, of course, sale of higher-priced units is more profitable for both manufacturers and retailers, and has a good selling point for the customers (better value for money). So, all praise to Mr Brown and other eco-warriors, for claiming credit for a natural capitalist change.
Best regards
Nigel – I have already been spreading the “standby and incandescent warming” concept whenever I hear mindless cant.
I will hold off buying new “energy saving” bulbs until LEDs come out that are even more efficient and come on when I want to, not “dink…dink, d-dink-FlickeryOn” like the “energy saving” abominations. Some bright spark needs to invent a dimmer for LEDs, ironically.
As for all these new green taxes§, I want to introduce a tax on taxes. Each time someone proposes a new tax they have to donate 10% of their party funding. Maybe then they will have an incentive to sort out Flat Tax once and for all.
§ Flat-Earth Taxes?
Over on the Times, we have There’s no choice: wrap up and grit your teeth.
My good comment there seems not to have made it to visibility, so I’ll try it here as well.
Ms Seighart writes:
This is after writing:
This makes me think that her grasp of logic is somewhat adrift: materially damaging anthropogenic global warming (through the CO2 greenhouse effect) is certain truth, but even if it is not, we must act as if it were.
One does not have to be an expert climatologist to understand that her thoughts are “in a spin”.
Do we not deserve better from journalists who write in the Times.
Best regards
I don’t think the argument over whether climate change is real or not is relevant. What matters is that energy saving gizmos are generally more efficient and better value for money. If it turns out that its cheaper for me to ‘go green’ (ie buy more efficient electrical goods which use less power and don’t wear out as quickly) then I will do so regardless of the assumed environmental benefits. My house hasn’t had an incandescent lightbulb in it for ages, mainly because the wiring is a bit dodgy and they used to blow if you looked at them funny. I would love to be as energy independent as possible purely because I resent paying for something which I could quite easily generate myself through a variety of means, unfortunately it’s not economically viable at the moment because the technology is quite expensive. As it gets cheaper (demand will rise due to the pushing of the green agenda by all flavours of politician), and when I have a home I can do what I like to I’ll be generating as much of my energy as I can by any means necessary, if only to be able to use a microwave when the infrastucture collapses in the coming revolution.
Yeah, but my question is: who’s going to clean up that mess with all those new light bulbs?
That’s what I want to know, dammit.
remove ‘standby’ functions from TVs and DVD players that use electricity when left on.
I thought the idea of the standby function on applicances was that it used less electricity to keep them running on low power than it did to start them up from cold each time. If not, what on earth is the point of standby mode?
Besides, a DVD player uses hardly and electricity anyway, and things like clock radios a negligible amount. It’s things which either have a giant motor, fat tube, or get hot which use a lot of electricity, i.e. fridges, TVs, light bulbs, cookers, etc. Looking at phone chargers to cut down on electricity is like trying to save tyre wear by carpetting your garage.