Light up
This weekend has seen London’s first incandescent light-bulb amnesty. With many believing we need to rid the streets of “the most successful city in the world” (to quote the Mayor’s office) of guns, knives and drugs, people are right to question why so much energy is being devoted to make war on the traditional light bulb. The humble bulb has been illuminating our lives and our homes since Swan and Edison began production in the 1880s, but now the eco-warriors want to see its final blow.
The rival, an energy efficient bulb. The ones being given away this weekend are all produced by Phillips and are sponsored by British Gas and B&Q. The idea is that the Mayor colludes with three big corporations in order to try to pull off a publicity stunt. The “amnesty” ignores the facts that energy efficient bulbs do not produce the same quality of light, take considerably longer to turn on, don’t work with dimmer switches which are extremely common, take a lot of energy to produce, will leak mercury into your home and look hideous. All of the sorry excuses for the inadequacies of the energy efficient bulb can be found on the official web-site.
However one accusation remains unanswered. By driving to B&Q, just to exchange one (or two) bulbs, will the carbon emissions from my car not greatly exceed those that I will save by switching to energy efficient bulbs?
It really is time to focus our energy on real improvements to our lives.
