From the “bah humbug department”. I have nothing against energy efficiency, I have LED’s myself and I didn’t even put them up this year. But, timing is everything, and people already stress out during holidays. Adding a guilt trip over Christmas lights hardly seems necessary or productive. – Anthony
From Australia’s Courier Mail
By Graham Readfearn
December 24, 2008 08:06am
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.
CSIRO researchers said householders should know that each bulb turned on in the name of Christmas will increase emissions of greenhouse gases.
Dr Glenn Platt, who leads research on energy demand, said Australia got 80 per cent of its electricity by burning coal which pumps harmful emissions into the atmosphere.
He said: “Energy efficient bulbs, such as LEDs, and putting your Christmas lights on a timer are two very easy ways to minimise the amount of electricity you use to power your lights.”
He said the nation’s electricity came from “centralised carbon intensive, coal-based power stations” which were responsible for emitting over one third of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions.
Dr Platt added: “For a zero-emission Christmas light show, you may consider using solar powered lights or sourcing your electricity from verified green power suppliers.”
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Festive bulbs….what the F are festive bulbs?
I need to log off now, the PC is using energy……the final step is to slow down breathing and place yourself into a coma like state. You can’t eat beef, corn is needed for fuel and all the green plants need to be left in place to convert CO2. You cannot build a wooden house and steel needs electricity to produce. Horses spew out methane, they are out. Gee, what’s the use of living? Of course, the Government needs us for taxes, that’s why.
Merry Christmas everybody.
Thank you all for making a absolutely fun and informative site.
Well, you got scientists and you got scientists. Some scientists are working to find the cure for cancer, some scientists are working to improve food production, some scientists are working to explain the workings of nature better.You get the picture.
And then you have scientists who worry about Christmas lights, and some scientist who worry about moose flatuence, or in this season reindeer flatuence.
And say “Anthropogenic Global Warming” as easily as Scrooge said “Bah Humbug
Thank God we still have a lot of those in the former group.
“REPLY: I bought the LED lights mostly because they have long life and had better connections…I get tired of playing “find the dead bulb”. – Anthony”
But…but…but…….
That’s what we’re SUPPOSED to do at Christmas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And a happy one for you and yours 😉
JimB
Yup, that’s definitely an engineer. The efficiency is more relevant if a specific amount of brightness is part of the specification. If the specification is only “bright enough to be visible at night”, then it’s quite likely that the incandescent with the lowest wattage draws more power than any LED visible at night.
I tried one string of white LEDs this year. 4.8 watts and ridiculously bright.
canuckjack – “festive bulbs” are used for Festivus. Incandescent bulbs are needed because they’re used to melt the Festivus wax Yule log.
(And I might use blockquote’s cite= if I knew what it does and how one uses it to cite someone else’s comment)
How many KWH have been consumed broadcasting this latest effort at getting
people to change from the Christian faith to the Environmentalism faith?
Anthony says he gets tired of playing “find the dead bulb”, so now we know where to send our dead bulbs. Once he has several boxes of them he should have no trouble finding dead bulbs.
Off topic, but wtf is going on with NSIDC?
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_timeseries.png
Is that total flattening out and dipping below the 2007 line real? Or will a later adjustment correct it?
I just did a post the other day on why incandescent light used in cold weather become heaters. In my case our electricity comes from nukes, by not using Christmas lights our natural gas heater runs a bit more creating more CO2 not less!
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2008/12/22/ban-all-incandesents-a-not-so-bright-idea/
Canada’s banning of incandescents makes about as much sense as pulling up on your ankles to fly.
Also from my previous post carried by WUWT, I pointed out some errors in the NSIDC documentation and the NSIDC has issued several corrections to their website.
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2008/12/24/nsidc-issues-corrections-to-webpage/
Please snip if you don’t want the reference here.
This reminds me of the scene in Batman when the joker guy put poison in makeup and hair spray, causing everyone on TV to show up in warts and pimples. Christmas tree lights are deadly! da da da da da da da da BATMAN!
In my youth the Christmas lights came in strings of 25 using 7 watt bulbs and normal use was 3 strings for the tree. making total of 525 watts on the tree that isn’t counting the outside lights. then we went to the strings with 4 watt bulbs making 300 watts on the tree. now we are using the mini lights and only about 75 watts per tree. I look forward to the good LED’s soon. What has caused the changes is the increasing cost of energy. I suspect in the near future there will be again great increases in the cost of energy under the new administration. We here are already turning the thermostat down and often burning wood for heat. I wonder if going back to the stone age will help to reduce emissions. Remember that what was used for fuel then cause CO2 and also lots of ash.
Merry Christmas to you all and burn the lights while you can. Perhaps we should turn off all the street lights and signs. that should cause cooling for sure.
Bill Derryberry
Screen capture this!
http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/wattsupwiththat.com?site0=realclimate.org&site1=wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com&site2=wattsupwiththat.com&site3=climatecrisis.net&y=r&z=2&h=300&w=610&c=1&u%5B%5D=realclimate.org&u%5B%5D=wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com&u%5B%5D=wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com&u%5B%5D=climatecrisis.net&x=2008-06-07T14%3A13%3A10.000Z&check=www.alexa.com&signature=4DQ6f7l6e6EWYI8FTiVhrxCq5Fo%3D&range=1m&size=Large
You’ll never again see such good 3 mos. Change numbers as they show today for WUWT:
Reach — up 8600%
Traffic Rank — up 2,762,751
Page Views — up 2%
Pretty good Christmas present. Have a merry one!
CSIRO is a joke…. They are pretty much a Green activist group now…. There is no longer a scientist among them.
I think we’ve got to the point where we can read alarmist articles about the harmful nocturnal emissions of Christmas lights with detached amusement. Yes, it’s madness, but it will pass. Fewer normal folks appear to be buying into the AGW-will-destroy-the-planet notion, and these may well become fewer still, if world temps continue to fail to skyrocket.
Wishing Anthony and everyone else a joyful and incandescent Xmas and New Year!
Only in San Franfreako.
——————————————————
S.F. fliers may pay their way in carbon usage
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/12/24/MNIR14PSQF.DTL&type=green
“Environmentally conscious travelers flying out of San Francisco International Airport will soon be able to assuage their guilt and minimize the impact of their air travel by buying certified carbon offsets at airport kiosks.”
“But the general idea, officials said, is that a traveler would approach a kiosk resembling the self-service check-in stations used by airlines, then punch in his or her destination. The computer would calculate the carbon footprint and the cost of an investment to offset the damage. The traveler could then swipe a credit card to help save the planet. Travelers would receive a printed receipt listing the projects benefiting from their environmental largesse.”
“”The carbon kiosks will not only reduce global warming,” Ballard said, “they will serve an educational function. It’s something interesting to do while you’re killing time at the airport.”
“Given the innovative nature of the venture, airport officials said they don’t expect 3Degrees will turn a profit – at least not at the outset. McDougal said it’s impossible to predict how many passengers will want to make what is essentially a voluntary contribution to compensate for the impacts of their air travel. But he hopes the program takes off.”
———————————————————
“…they don’t expect 3Degrees will turn a profit – at least not at the outset.”
That will change when it becomes mandatory.
Once again, the AGW movement shows that there is nothing sacred and/or fun when it comes to its all-important mission of ‘saving the planet.’ How about this? If we can, let’s stack up side-by-side all the emissions used in promoting the AGW agenda – from plane trips to the electricity used to operate the offices of groups like Greenpeace and even the IPCC to all the energy it takes to promote reports like this one on Christmas lights – with all the energy/C02 produced by Christmas lights and see which one is bigger year after year. The once the numbers are tallied we can decide which one we should keep and which one should get the ol’ heave-ho ho.
I switched to LED lights a few years ago because they avoid the hunt the bulb problen amd do draw less power ( a few watts) and hence save a bit of money on the eleticity bill.
I’m also fascinated by the way I can’t focus the blue ones clearly which ( I am guessing) is due to the eyes inability to refract as well at this wave length .
I’m going to add lights to my F-150 4×4-which I need to go to work in.
Due to 8 in of snow in La Grande, Oregon. CSIRO can bite me…
Happy Christmas and a prosperous New Year to all.
Isaiah 9:6 says, “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” Jesus is the reason for the season. Bring His light into your life.
That’s why they want the lights turned off.
who needs the Drudge Report?
Hack.
I’d like to make a point regarding the assertion that one can use green energy to eliminate the “harmful” effects of Christmas lights. Efficient use of solar power requires consumption at the instant of creation. Same goes for wind power. Christmas lights increment the amount of power consumed, and the incremental demand for power is almost 100% covered by nuclear and coal. (This is due to the fact that coal and nuclear supply power on demand – and do not demand consumption when energized.)
Therefore, is simply is not realistic (or probably possible) to do what these grumpy scientists are asking. Any green energy that you would have purchased for your Christmas lights will certainly be consumed somewhere else – thus you’re just moving a hole (while making another in your pocket).
It’s 10:42 AM here in chilly Missoula. I just went out and turned on my Christmas lights. Saw the sun for the first time in a week and waded through 14″ of snow to fix a string that didn’t immediately light. Merry Christmas everyone.
You should NOT be looking at Blue LED’s at night, the human eye is not made to do that.
You should be thinking about turning street lights out, so people can see your pretty LED christmas lights. Many councils in England are doing just that, putting timers on the SL’s so that they go off at midnight, or just plain turning the insects off. They’re saving a bundle, like Geiko, so easy a city council can do it. Billions of SL’s all over the world sucking power when people are trying to sleep. Billions of FL’s in huge corporate buildings on all night when nobody is there. Of course, we waste power like there in an infinite supply of oil & gas to light the world. Why? Because people who sell power make a lot of money off of the average person, they just spread it onto the residential lighting bill as a surcharge that eventually becomes permanent, and they get rich doing it.
The commerical people don’t pay surcharges, but you sure do.
Ever checked? Of course you haven’t. You have no idea, do you?
No, you don’t. It’s a money game, tag, you’re it.
See, they just tried to scare you over your puny once a year LED’s on your Christmas tree they overcharged you for, but the real story is all the money they are sucking out of your pockets as they make YOU pay for lighting up the world.
Know what?
Most will buy into the scare. People are stupid. And gullible.
Actually, I got so tired of playing the “dead bulb hunt” game, and the price of lights drops so low right after Xmas, I used to just keep 10 extra boxes of 100 downstairs.
When it was time to decorate, any string with a dead bulb went in the trash.
For $.99/string, it just wasn’t worth the time, period.
JimB