Govt banning lightbulbs.... wot about halogens?

[Peter Parry]

Ah, the rallying cry of the Iron Age Restoration Society. If all the passengers on the Titanic had been issued with teaspoons and told to use them to bale after it hit the iceberg "something would have been done". It would of course have had no effect whatsoever on the final outcome nor would it have delayed it by any measurable amount.

Changing light bulbs has the same order of magnitude of impact as issuing teaspoons on the Titanic would have. If the population of the UK was entirely eliminated next Wednesday it would have no measurable effect on the progress or otherwise of climate change. You don't solve a problem by ignoring its causes and instead playing around with stealth taxes in the margins with pious mutterings of "every bit helps" or "everyone must do their bit" to rally the ignorati.

If "something has to be done" then that something must involve massive population reduction worldwide and I don't see any of the greenygroups being brave enough to campaign for that. There is nothing more hypocritical than green evangelists with children.

[Derek Geldard]

PML.

We have been burgled 4 times in the last 5 years.

I leave them for the people in pourer countries who are experiencing drought and or flooding which is destroying there food sources and starving them.

DG

[Steve Firth]

And this is something.

Are you a politician?

[Dave Liquorice]

Why do you need lights on outside unless you are living out there?

Is it really so difficult to switch a light on when you go out and off when you come in? Thats what I do, sometimes, more often than not there is enough spill from the interior lights or from the stars/moon. The nearest street lights are 1.5 miles away and we live in an area with probably the darkest skies in England, so no sky glow.

False sense of security IMHO. If you are remote there is no point in lighting the place as there will be no one passing to see the tea leaf. The light, even low level, creates very dark shadows and reduces your abilty to see outside the lit area, great for tea leafs to hide in...

[<me9]

A lot of things labelled as unsuitable were so labelled as they were unsuitable for the original jampot style ones with conventional style ballast and work with more recent ones. Some are limited by the /minimum/ load they will switch. I haven't used a conventional GLS lamp for years.

[<me9]

I just changed as bulbs were replaced. I haven't had a GLS lamp for over 5 years, possibly 10.

Why are people daft enough to dim lamps? they turn a nasty colour, and don't use significantly less power. Just switch some off!

It's about time street lamps were addressed. We've just had a new scheme here, and it is better in that the light is more or less directed down, and is not HP sodium. The sky is much clearer but still not helped by the next town. outside lighting levels need drastic rduction. linear QH should be banned first, and any outside uplighting, or lights that spill onto adjacent property.

[<me9]

That's the best suggestion I've sen so far, but I can't see any avian porkers.

[<me9]

From my experiance in north Northumberland, you should get some sky glow (admittedly low level) from the conurbations around Newcastle and Carlisle. They seem (certainly Tyne & Wear) to glow for at least 60 miles if local lighting is non existant.

[Bob Mannix]

You reactionary old fart! Hooray! There is only one "solution" to the effect we are having on the ecosystem. As you say, that is for 50% of the world's population to die (at random). The developed countries' demand for fossil fuel will collapse and food shortages in the underdeveloped areas will cease. Anything less is tinkering really. How anyone can imagine that banning our incandescent lights is going to have any effect alongside the industrialisation of China and India is bonkers!

[TheOldFellow]

Perhaps they're all on so that the Flying Pigs don't run into them in the dark?

R.

[TheOldFellow]

I too, have an outside light to illuminate the path to the front door. It's a 1 watt LED run from a sun-charged battery.

R.

[TheOldFellow]

Save the world, Eat Chinese! R

[Dave Liquorice]

If you know where to look and the conditions are right you can detect the tiny sky glow from Carlisle. Curiously not Newcastle. Teeside on the other hand produces at most an orange glow about 30 degrees wide and 30 high to the SE.

If it's a clear moonless night the stars are just an amazing sight. The milky way is just there, a band of light arching across the sky. You don't need artifical light starlight is enough.

[Stuart Noble]

IMO something has to be done about the recent reduction in underpass lighting. Drive into one on a sunny day and you can see bugger all for a few seconds until your eyes adjust.

[Huge]

Until you drop your keys into the flower bed, that is.

[S Viemeister]

That's why I always carry a small torch.

[<me9]

It is so in north Northumberland, when far enough north for the glow of Tyneside (or is it Teesside) to subside. Amazing.

I currently live on Teesside, and I can believe you see such a glow from there. Even through a local power cut (on the fringe of Teesside) reducing light for a mile or so I can navigate around the house at night.

[dicegeorge]

wouldnt it better for the government to put a big tax on normal lightbulbs (as they do on petrol) so it would becheaper to buy low energy bulbs but people with dimmer lights installed can save on rewiring (which ses up resources) and continue to buy the bulbs they want?

george

[Brian Sharrock]

Never mind the lamps dangling from the ceiling ..... What about the filament bulbs in my;- fridge; grill; oven; hob-fan; and .... tumble dryer? Not to mention the headlights (dual filament); stop lamps; reversing lamps; brake lamps; indicators ..... . ?

[David Hansen]

On Fri, 28 Sep 2007 09:04:54 +0100 someone who may be "Kroma" wrote this:-

You appear to be assuming a linear relationship between light output and input power. This is far from the case with GLS lamps.

Time switches generally work fine with low energy lamps. The exceptions generally involve some electronic time switches which can suffer a variety of failures (including a track on the PCB burning out due to being too thin, believe it or not).

Variable light levels can be achieved with a variety of fittings which are switched on as necessary. There are also now dimmable energy saving lamps, though the best known model only has four steps.

It is possible to make dimmable fluorescent lamps by separating the control gear from the tubes. One can see this with larger fittings, but this has been difficult to reproduce with a small lamp that has the control gear and tube integrated in one unit.