Temperatures may not be going up much due to global warming, with the northern hemisphere shivering through yet another extremely cold winter, but there is definitely one thing very much on the up thanks to global warming.
The cost of light bulbs.
Everyone needs light bulbs of course, especially the elderly, the sick and the partially sighted. Cheap and effective lighting is one of the major necessities of modern life. So, in the current recession, it’s unwelcome news to hear that the cost of light bulbs could triple in the UK and Europe thanks to global warming legislation, as the Daily Mail reports:
The price of energy saving light bulbs will treble as the final supplies of traditional light bulbs dry up, industry experts have warned.
Retailers also claim bulbs that currently cost only 33p are expected to sell for more than £1 within three months. Some will cost £3 or more [approx. $6 US].
Ker-ching! But why now? During the phase-in period the EU forced energy companies to subsidize the new ‘eco-bulbs’ to avoid negative publicity as well as stock-piling of traditional light-bulbs by people as they realized what the new bulbs would cost:
Under the Carbon Emissions Reduction Target, big energy suppliers subsidised eco-bulbs. But from March companies will be forced to spend the money on helping consumers improve loft and wall insulation.
Now that the subsidy is coming to an end, prices for one of life’s basic essentials are expected to soar, thanks to the Carbon Emissions Reduction Target, or “CERT” as it’s known. Thanks to global warming legislation, sky-rocketing costs for basic items also seem to be a dead “cert”.
Anyone even remotely surprised by this?
hauntingthelibrary 
Well, maybe people won’t notice as they will be too busy dealing with their migraines and skin rashes. The Carbon Institute will surely approve. Just to put the £1 or £3 in context, if you are on jobseekers allowance you get £64.30 per week. Out of that you have to pay electricity, water, gas, telephone, food etc. You go figure. HTL, do you have a contact email? (I haven’t been able to find one on the site but maybe I am being blind) My friend sending me John Donne poems made me think of a rather bizarre story from the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference that you might be able to have some fun with but I would need to send you are link and a translation.
Hi Hannah,
You can contact me at hauntingthelibrary@hotmail.co.uk
Cheers.
“…companies will be forced to spend the money on helping consumers improve loft and wall insulation.”
Any benefit will, of course, be to the relatively better off members of society who own their own houses. They will see comparatively lower heating bills and some increase in property value.
Poorer people a) disproportionately live in shared accommodation and flats where – even if they are allowed to install it – insulation will make less difference anyway, b) live in rented properties where landlords aren’t paying the rising heating bills and so won’t stump up any money for insulation and c) won’t have the money for the immediate costs anyway, regardless of any potential savings in the long run.
Great! More subsidies for those who need it the least, none for those who need it the most. (See also solar/wind feed in tariffs)
Wrong, the poor get fuel subsidies for their heating. I have to pay higher fuel costs for myself and then even higher taxes to pay for those who can’t afford the increase. Trust me, I’m gonna “go Galt” on these social engineers just to prove to them that Margaret Thatcher wasn’t making a point – she was making a prediction.
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This was all a big give-away to China who has many of our politicians in their back pocket. Remember Mr. Hsu? – he was just one that happened to get caught…. The last incandescent manufacturing plant in the USA closed down last month so when the ban is repealed – we won’t be making them here again for a very long time anyway. The equipment, the technology and the PEOPLE, (light bulb factory machinery engineers, mechanics, skilled factory operators, etc.), are all GONE, (many now trying to sell mutual funds to each other)… and they ain’t coming back. Thanks liberals.
It’s a familiar story with most eco-technologies intended to save the planet:
The advantages are plugged and the disadvantages ignored. In the case of CFLs, the disadvantages are the warm up time, the short life when used in fittings in which they can overheat, the fact they contain mercury increasing the cost of proper disposal, the RFI they create and so on. The plugging involves lies and obscuration e.g. feed in tariffs, and the technique of initially artificially lowering the price to suck folk in, mentioned in the lead post.
Anything which needs dishonest means to sell it is automatically suspect in my book.
If people wanted these things they would have bought them, which we did in small numbers. The campaign started with large retailers being leaned on not to offer incandescent bulbs; leaning on retailers to not supply a legal product is hardly a legitimate tactic for a government.
The result is that we are forced to pay for a product we would not otherwise choose because it’s a technology which almost works.
I stocked up on incandescent light bulbs long ago. I certainly don’t want to use CFLs on stairways where the warm up time makes them decidedly dangerous.
I suspect that Philips and others played a large part in having these things foisted on us through influencing the EU, and they weren’t thinking in terms of saving the planet.