Gore, TED and CFLs
It took me 2 years to finally watch The Inconvenient Truth and while I know that I’m two years late, I know I’m not the last… only because my parents haven’t yet. But I just solved that problem by buying them the DVD and shipping it to them. Hopefully they take Al Gore’s message sans politics. I understood that the climate crisis was real but didn’t realize the severity of the problems and how urgently we need to change.
I heard from a classmate that there was a recent video of Gore from the TED.com series on “A Greener Future?” recorded in March 2008. Sadly, it was much of the same message even two years after The Inconvenient Truth even with the progress that’s been made. He calls for “bold moves” by society. Hopefully we’ll see that soon.
I don’t have any bold moves up my sleeves just yet. But I took a small step in the right direction by picking up a bunch of CFLs (compact florescent lightbulbs) from Costco today and was trying to figure out how much money I’d save or how much it would cost to use these instead of the 11-60 watt incandescent bulbs I’ve found in my apartment. Each of the bulbs I bought output the same amount of light as a 60 W bulb but only use 13 W of electricity. The bottom line: we’ll be saving a ridiculous amount of electricity and more than pay for the new bulbs. For example: if I ran my room light for 1 hour every day for one year, the cost of the 4 bulbs in my overhead fixture would be $11 versus the $2 I would pay with the new bulbs (assuming $0.12 per kWh). In other words, buying CFLs to replace every single bulb in your apartment or home is the way to go - both financially and environmentally. Why are they still selling incandescents at all? I hope I wasn’t the last to figure that out too.
Wait, you didn’t pick up CFLs until now? And you call yourself a Californian….. and a San Franciscan!
haha.. Seriously, tho, that’s a step in the right direction. Good job! I’m anxiously anticipating some other upcoming light bulb tech, like LED lights. LED bulbs are advantageous in almost every way, but currently they’re either too expensive or sucky. I tried out a couple cheap ones I found online, but the light output and color quality was terrible. Perhaps the more expensive ones are better, and the more they’re developed, the better/cheaper they’ll be.
Kyle said this on September 17th, 2008 at 12:34 pm