Why are some people so afraid of climate change?

[Korto]

From where I sit, changing bulbs is cheaper for me. Yes, the bulbs cost more up front, but their lower electricity use adds up. Factor that in and the cost per hour of lighting is cheaper with energy saving bulbs. Even when the energy savers are providing more light than incandescent bulbs.
So how exactly do they make your life worse ?

They cost more up front, they emit an ugly light that I do not feel comfortable around, they emit less light, they are ugly. Etc.

OK, this has reached stupid.
* Cost more up front - Fair enough. They do. And I haven't got round to working out yet if the power they save makes up for it fully. I suspect it doesn't.
* They emit an ugly light - So you're using cold white? Why not get a warm white? They look far better.
* They emit less light - What kind of weird-arse CFLs are you using? We have 14 W globes, emitting the light of a 60 W incandescent, therefore it emits four times the light, watt for watt. Even if it didn't truly emit 60 W worth, the next step up (18 W I believe) is still less than a third of 60. I've never seen a 60 watt CFL, but I believe it would emit more light than a 60 W incandescent.
Conclusion - watt for watt, they emit far more light. How are you measuring it?
* They are ugly - This is just whining because it's not what you're used to. Get a light shade, or get a different design CFL. I've seen all shapes, including bulbs. Or get over it.

The simple math is that changes need to come in a way that is both large scale, systematic AND mesh seamlessly into our existing lives. Both factors are of equal importance to me. It's governments, economices and corporations that should have to make sacrifices and not the everyman.

I assume by "everyman" you mean yourself? I think I may have found your problem.

[bilateralrope]

They cost more up front, they emit an ugly light that I do not feel comfortable around, they emit less light, they are ugly. Etc.

Cost is a very stupid complaint unless your finances are so tight you can't afford the up front cost. In the long run they will cost you less. Are your finances that tight or are you just that stupid ?

The light they emit is something that differs between model. Yes, early ones were terrible. Others are much better. How many have you tried ?

As for them being ugly, get a lamp shade so you don't have to look at them. Or just stop being selfish and get used to them.

Hypothetical question: If a better solution than nuclear comes along, one that is even less politically viable, would you say dump nuclear in favor of it ?

Probably yes. It would depend on the way it is better than atomic

So you'd dump an option with a higher chance of success just because you want the best ?

Just like you would dump a solution that can have an effect quickly (energy saving bulbs) in favor of a solution that will take years before it has an effect (building the nuclear plants).

Would you also dump nuclear plants mid construction in favor of this better scheme ?

More nuclear plants. The simple math is that changes need to come in a way that is both large scale, systematic AND mesh seamlessly into our existing lives.

I wouldn't call nuclear plants less intrusive for whoever has to stop using the land to build one. But that wouldn't matter to you, because it doesn't directly affect you.

It's governments, economices and corporations that should have to make sacrifices and not the everyman.

This sums up your attitude. You find any slight inconvenience to yourself more important than fighting global warming. I wonder how many climate change deniers think the same way you do, but decided that lying about it is easier than telling the truth about how selfish they are.

[Broomstick]

Although we're switching over the LED's in my household. Even more efficient in energy usage than CFL's.

And bloody expensive. Unless you get lucky and cop a sale, you're talking $10 each (easy). Not easy to replace them at that cost if finances are a concern, as I well know...

We formed a group of like-minded folks and made a large order to get a deal. Also remember, it's not just the cost of the bulbs, they burn a LOT less than anything else. That's where the savings come in.

[Elheru Aran]

Although we're switching over the LED's in my household. Even more efficient in energy usage than CFL's.

And bloody expensive. Unless you get lucky and cop a sale, you're talking $10 each (easy). Not easy to replace them at that cost if finances are a concern, as I well know...

We formed a group of like-minded folks and made a large order to get a deal. Also remember, it's not just the cost of the bulbs, they burn a LOT less than anything else. That's where the savings come in.

Oh, I'm quite aware the savings accrue over time. It's the up-front cost that hurts the wallet. My wife and I are in a place where up front is more important right now than over time, regrettably... I'm sure you understand the situation.

But the whole 'group of like minded folks', hmm, I could get into something like that. How to get started, I wonder...

[Purple]

OK, this has reached stupid.

If you say so.

* Cost more up front - Fair enough. They do. And I haven't got round to working out yet if the power they save makes up for it fully. I suspect it doesn't.

I would not bother doing the math for that anyway as the results will wary on a lot of factors inherent to where someone lives.

* They emit an ugly light - So you're using cold white? Why not get a warm white? They look far better.

White light is ugly. Yellow light feels more natural.

* They emit less light - What kind of weird-arse CFLs are you using? We have 14 W globes, emitting the light of a 60 W incandescent, therefore it emits four times the light, watt for watt. Even if it didn't truly emit 60 W worth, the next step up (18 W I believe) is still less than a third of 60. I've never seen a 60 watt CFL, but I believe it would emit more light than a 60 W incandescent.

Honestly I am used to using 100W bulbs as the weakest thing in my home. 60W is pathetically weak in my book.

Conclusion - watt for watt, they emit far more light. How are you measuring it?

By what my eyes tell me. Fact is, these results might well be completely inaccurate and outright false. I accept that. But when it comes to forming an opinion on which I prefer my impressions will naturally be more important.

* They are ugly - This is just whining because it's not what you're used to. Get a light shade, or get a different design CFL. I've seen all shapes, including bulbs. Or get over it.

Or I could exercise my democratic right to free speech and whine about it. In fact, I could exercise my democratic rights and protest it as well.

I assume by "everyman" you mean yourself? I think I may have found your problem.

I mean everyone. Why should rich power companies get the right to save on building new atomic plants instead of the people having the right to save on buying bulbs?

Cost is a very stupid complaint unless your finances are so tight you can't afford the up front cost. In the long run they will cost you less. Are your finances that tight or are you just that stupid ?

If something costs more, it costs more. This is true regardless of the buyers financial situation.

The light they emit is something that differs between model. Yes, early ones were terrible. Others are much better. How many have you tried ?

I did not really stop to count. But it has been a while.

So you'd dump an option with a higher chance of success just because you want the best ?

Accepting second best is the kind of defeatist talk that drives progress down. Where would we be now if all the people who wanted rights, freedoms and other valuable things had settled for second best?

Just like you would dump a solution that can have an effect quickly (energy saving bulbs) in favor of a solution that will take years before it has an effect (building the nuclear plants).

Yes, I am willing to forgo a weak band aid solution that works quick for a systemic one that works well.

Would you also dump nuclear plants mid construction in favor of this better scheme ?

Dump no. But start treating them as a stopgap until the superior method can be implemented to fully replace it.

I wouldn't call nuclear plants less intrusive for whoever has to stop using the land to build one. But that wouldn't matter to you, because it doesn't directly affect you.

There is plenty of unused land in the world. Surprisingly most of our land does not in fact have the population density of downtown Tokyo.

This sums up your attitude. You find any slight inconvenience to yourself more important than fighting global warming. I wonder how many climate change deniers think the same way you do, but decided that lying about it is easier than telling the truth about how selfish they are.

Only if that inconvenience is a band aid solution that only serves to make people think the problem will go away so that proper cures don't need to be applied since they are politically inconvenient. For example, I would not mind the inconvenience of having an atomic power plant built next to my home. Or of having my land forcefully bought away and flooded to build a hydroelectric plant since these are systemic solutions that actually do something useful.

[Borgholio]

I've never seen a 60 watt CFL, but I believe it would emit more light than a 60 W incandescent.

I have a 75w CFL as a porch light. Fucker puts out enough light to illuminate both my neighbors to either side.

Speaking of neighbors, my Tea-party neighbor is of the same opinion as Purple. He dislikes CFLs for many of the same reasons. He also believes that CFLs pose more of an environmental hazard than coal power plants. I gave up a long time ago trying to convince him...even when I made the point that my entire house uses the same amount of power for lighting that he consumes in just his living room alone. It's one of those things where he has a personal preference and he will stick with it even if it costs him several times more than it really has to.

[salm]

Personally I don´t like a lot of CFL either. Some are good but often you don´t really know if they´re good when you buy them.
I used to buy them anyways for financial reasons but now that the prices of LEDs have gone down so far I´m replacing old CFL with them. The LEDs are everything you could hope for.
The light looks exactly the same as conventional lamps, they are bright, they are dimmable, they turn on instantly, they don´t buzz, they use absurdly little energy and if what the light companies promise is true they last ridiculously long.

[LaCroix]

The myth about CFLs and LED being dimmer is based on the fact that the Package is misleading. Their "This XX Watts = XXX Watts" are usually wrong - you need to look up their actual lumen output (it's on the package).

250lm= 25Watt equivalent
500lm= 40W
800lm= 60W
1500lm= 100W

My rule of thumb is to take a lamp one class higher than they claim - if I want to replace a 60W lamp, I'd take a 75W equivalent LED - it still saves me 45 -50 Watts (2 or 3 watts less as if I took the recommended one), and will certainly be just as bright as the old bulb.

[His Divine Shadow]

Yeah we got superb LEDs for 4 euros a pop from IKEA. Buying CFLs just became obsolete and pointless as far as I am concerned. Also read something that CFLs could interfere with the electricity distribution in your house. LED is here thankfully and I will never buy a single CFL again after the ones I got burn out.

Also installing LED spotlights in my new house. It'll be almost entirely LED illuminated.

[Broomstick]

The myth about CFLs and LED being dimmer is based on the fact that the Package is misleading.

Well.... in cold temperatures CFL's are, in fact, dimmer. While that shouldn't be a problem for lighting your living space for exterior lighting it certainly can be a problem.

[Borgholio]

The myth about CFLs and LED being dimmer is based on the fact that the Package is misleading.

Well.... in cold temperatures CFL's are, in fact, dimmer. While that shouldn't be a problem for lighting your living space for exterior lighting it certainly can be a problem.

Not a problem for those of us who live in areas where 55 degrees is considered frigid.

[Channel72]

So Pat Sajak made a proclamation the other day that those who support the idea of Global Warming are unpatriotic racists.

Add another celebrity onto my "Used to enjoy watching" list. But worse, on FB there are more people coming out in support of him than criticizing him. The pro-Sajak crowd use all the usual arguments that liberals are in it for the money, that "enough" scientists doubt climate change to make it a hoax, that Greenland used to be fully green, that the world overall has been cooling down over the last century, etc...

I wonder, why are so many people against climate change? Why do they feel threatened by it? It's very easy to trot out a graph showing the progress of the industrial revolution, the steady increase of greenhouse gases, and the overall gradual rise in global temperature, and find that they match very closely. Why is this such a mind-blower for these people?

I don't think the average climate-change denier is afraid of climate change. Rather, it comes off to them as eye-rolling, liberal propaganda. The problem is that the organizations that do have a vested interest in denying climate change, i.e. the various entities that profit from the existing oil infrastructure, have successfully cast enough "bad PR" on climate change to politicize it, turning it into a "left-wing" talking point instead of valid science. It probably doesn't help that it's also associated with Al Gore (and Al Gore has profited immensely from climate-change awareness).

The thing is, the general public has zero understanding of the science behind climate change. And in the conspiracy-minded thinking of a lot of the general public , all you need is a hypothetical motive to declare something a hoax or conspiracy. Al Gore profited off of climate change, therefore it is all a scam, etc. The Democrats are pushing climate change because they want to curb our freedoms and make us depend more on the government, etc. It's the same thinking with 9/11 conspiracy theorists... the US government had a motive for wanting to invade Iraq, therefore 9/11 was a conspiracy, etc.

[bilateralrope]

White light is ugly. Yellow light feels more natural.

How do you define natural ?

Color temperature seems like it would be a good way to compare them.

I mean everyone. Why should rich power companies get the right to save on building new atomic plants instead of the people having the right to save on buying bulbs?

Who said anything about stopping nuclear power ?
I'm saying both need to be done. We are not in a position where we can afford to delay a method that will work right now in favor of one that will take decades at the quickest.

If something costs more, it costs more. This is true regardless of the buyers financial situation.

It's not that simple. There are two costs. The up front cost, which is what you care about. The big obvious cost. The one that only matters if your finances are very tight because it can make the switch impossible.

Then there is the cost per hour of illumination. Take the up front cost of the bulb. Divide it by the number of hours of illumination the bulb will provide. Then add the cost of electricity per hour to keep the bulb on. That gives you the cost per hour. This is the figure you need to consider if you want to know which bulbs are truly cheaper in the long run.

Accepting second best is the kind of defeatist talk that drives progress down. Where would we be now if all the people who wanted rights, freedoms and other valuable things had settled for second best?

Right where the gay rights movement is right now. It has never been in a position for any large step, only making small ones. Each small step made the next step easier. But, more importantly, each step is an improvement over the previous one.

Your argument sounds like someone saying that civil unions were not acceptable. Someone who would only accept same sex marriage or no legal recognition of the relationship.
Or maybe someone saying that decriminalizing homosexuality unless it went all the was from homosexuality being criminal to same sex marriage in a single set.

Yes, I am willing to forgo a weak band aid solution that works quick for a systemic one that works well.

Politics means that nuclear power is not an option right now. Politics are part of the reality we have to work with. The reality you seem to ignore because it would inconvenience you.

Dump no. But start treating them as a stopgap until the superior method can be implemented to fully replace it.

Then why not use energy saving bulbs as a stopgap ?

There is plenty of unused land in the world. Surprisingly most of our land does not in fact have the population density of downtown Tokyo.

What are the land requirements of a nuclear planet ?

Last I heard, they require a hefty water supply for cooling. Which limits where they can be built.

Only if that inconvenience is a band aid solution that only serves to make people think the problem will go away so that proper cures don't need to be applied since they are politically inconvenient.

The only person saying that people think it would make the problem go away is you. But lets assume there are a large group of people who think that. Some facts still remain:
- Energy saving bulbs would still help.
- Once they are implemented, then you get more political will for taking the next step.
- By slowing climate change, they buy more time for other options to be implemented.

[agent009]

Frankly, I've been always wondering why people a always fussing so much about saving energy on lighting households. Household energy consumption only a fraction of what is consumed by the industry and, within a household, what you consume on lighting is only a fraction of what is consumed by the fridge, washing machine, dishwasher etc. Overall impact of saving energy on household lighting is really very very small.

That being said, I personally use CFLs, mainly because they are still much cheaper then LEDs and last significantly longer then incandescence (and even a small reduction on electricity bill is still quite welcome). You can get as much luminosity with them as you get with incandescence if you chose right power and color.

[Broomstick]

The concentration on lighting is low-hanging fruit - it's relatively simple to do, most people can afford it (even us poor types) and there's enough of a difference to be noticeable in the billing if you convert the entire home even if it isn't fantastic.

Also, I will note that not all of us have a full list of power-consuming appliances - I don't have washer, dryer, dishwasher, garbage disposal, etc. (I do have a fridge ) Thus, for my home lighting is a larger part of the bill than for a more fully, shall we say, "equipped" residence.

[agent009]

The concentration on lighting is low-hanging fruit - it's relatively simple to do, most people can afford it (even us poor types) and there's enough of a difference to be noticeable in the billing if you convert the entire home even if it isn't fantastic.

I agree - for a given household even a few € reduction on monthly electricity bill is always welcome But the total amount of energy spent on household lighting is relatively insignificant on the global scale if you compare it to how much energy is being used by other things. Even if all people on Earth suddenly stopped lighting their homes, it still wouldn't save us from global worming.

[Borgholio]

Even if all people on Earth suddenly stopped lighting their homes, it still wouldn't save us from global worming.

Nobody ever said it would. It WILL make a difference though. By that same logic, we should allow trains and planes to be as dirty as they want to be because they put out less overall pollution than all the cars on the road.

[Kreller1]

I love the CFL's, it's just damned near impossible to find them in stock around here.

[Napoleon the Clown]

Re: Lighting - No single drop of rain is the one responsible for the flood. It's when all these little things come together. Lighting is a really easy step to take, and even if it's only a small fraction of energy expended, the amount of lighting being used means that it'll add up to something.

[agent009]

It WILL make a difference though.

I never said it won't make any difference - but the actual amount of difference it could possibly make is relatively insignificant compared to the fuss which is going on around this matter IMHO opinion, governments should concentrate on building more cleaner power plants and reducing industrial emissions instead of harassing households about lightbulbs.

[Borgholio]

governments should concentrate on building more cleaner power plants and reducing industrial emissions instead of harassing households about lightbulbs.

They are...unless you missed the recent example of course, where the EPA is putting strict new regulations on coal power plants.

[Ziggy Stardust]

I never said it won't make any difference - but the actual amount of difference it could possibly make is relatively insignificant compared to the fuss which is going on around this matter IMHO opinion, governments should concentrate on building more cleaner power plants and reducing industrial emissions instead of harassing households about lightbulbs.

You realize these things aren't mutually exclusive, right? Most governments ARE concentrating on multimodal solutions. Many industries and interest groups are.

[bilateralrope]

On the 'energy saving bulbs' are ugly argument, I recently started using LED lights instead of CFLs. They look surprisingly like incandescent bulbs. This page has a picture of a LED bulb close to what mine look like. So there goes any argument about energy saving bulbs being uglier than incandesants.

They also come on instantly at full brightness. I haven't used and incandescent bulbs for years, but I remember that they took time to reach full brightness, less than CFLs, but still more than LEDs.
Where they behave differently is that they don't turn off instantly. When you turn them off, it takes a few seconds for the light to fade. Which can be useful.

[Purple]

On the 'energy saving bulbs' are ugly argument, I recently started using LED lights instead of CFLs. They look surprisingly like incandescent bulbs. This page has a picture of a LED bulb close to what mine look like. So there goes any argument about energy saving bulbs being uglier than incandesants.

They also come on instantly at full brightness. I haven't used and incandescent bulbs for years, but I remember that they took time to reach full brightness, less than CFLs, but still more than LEDs.

How much more do they cost though? Also do they come in 100W and stronger? Since that's the weakest bulb I ever use.

Where they behave differently is that they don't turn off instantly. When you turn them off, it takes a few seconds for the light to fade. Which can be useful.

Or annoying. But that's not really a decent argument since it's situational.

[madd0ct0r]

purple, are you cooking with your lightbulbs? 100W is more then I'd use for my painting desk, that's like a small searchlight (unless we're talking really inefficient bulbs - do you happen to know the lumen output?)