Here’s a good resource for those of you interested in changing to CF lighting. One Billion Bulbs is a neat little community with energy savings calculators and other tools for making the switch and spreading the word. Check out the current stats:
I am bit late to this party, but I wanted to climb on board anyway because I feel very strongly about this.
[Note: this is part of a webwide series of blog posts about compact fluorescent lightbulbs. January is the darkest month of the year in the Northern Hemisphere (December might be a bit darker, but with all the candles, trees and dropping balls, we work hard to light it up). To fight off the darkness, bloggers everywhere are invited to create a post with their own riff on why CF bulbs are cheaper, better politically, harder to market or just plain cute. Your choice. If you trackback here, I'll post your link in a future post and/or you can add your link to this lens, which donates all royalties to Ecotrust].
From Seth Godin’s Blog
This is something I’ve felt pretty strongly about for some time now. I’ve always been a turn the lights off when you leave a room kind of guy so naturally any energy savings is appealing to me. Why? Is it to save on my utility bills? Sure – who wouldn’t want that? But I really think it is more than that. Every bit of energy you conserve cascades, it adds to the big picture. Sure your bills might be a little less. But on a grander scale every little bit of energy that you save is less energy that has to be produced be it via a coal plant or oil refinery. That helps the environment. So when people are still buying large SUV’s because they can “afford” the price of gas, they’re missing the point. There is more to conservation than just your bottom line.
But the thing is, switching away from incandescent lighting may make a bigger impact than you might expect. How big? Well, according to Energystar.gov:
“If every American home replaced just one light bulb with an ENERGY STAR [compact fluorescent bulb], we would save enough energy to light more than 2.5 million homes for a year and prevent greenhouse gasses equivalent to the emissions of nearly 800,000 cars.â€
Frankly, that’s a pretty modest goal. Australia has plans to completely ban incandescent bulbs altogether by 2009. How about that for government really acting on something?
So please comment here. Send your trackbacks. Sign the lens linked above. But most of all, replace those outdated bulbs with newer, more energy-efficient compact fluorescent models.
Kurt Hochenauer over at OkieFunk has a great voter’s guide to the Oklahoma election aimed at liberal voters. He writes:
On the state and national level, Republican politicians have supported a lying, warmongering president who has committed impeachable offenses. They did so purely for political gain. The GOP has obviously blown their majority-rule opportunity, and voters should tell them so in local elections.
Head on over to read the article for a great race-by-race analysis of the Democratic slate and don’t forget to vote on November 7!
Anyone at all interested in the political and social issues surrounding health care in the United States should give this forum by Adman Gopnik and Malcolm Gladwell a read. The crux of the debate is a comparisson of the health care systems in the US, Canada, and France.
Even I have to admit this is pretty funny:
Bush’s unpopularity with many Canadians was underscored as thousands marched through the streets of the Canadian capital to protest the visit.
But the two leaders made light of the demonstrations, with Martin remarking jokingly that Bush seemed to draw larger crowds than he does.
“I don’t know if that’s good or bad,” Bush said. “It all depends on who shows up I guess.”
In another quip, Bush expressed appreciation for Canadians who greeted him on the route from the airport waving “with all five fingers.”
That’s far more clever than the guy we saw the past few months.
A CNN article refutes Bill O’Reilly’s assertion that viewers of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show were nothing but “stoned slackers”. The article cites a survey that shows that Daily Show viewers are better informed on politics and election issues than viewers of other late-night talk shows and even scored better than newspaper readers and news network viewers.
Not only is The Daily Show one of the funniest and best written shows on television, but it clearly is informative when it comes to critical issues. I think many underestimate the viewership and power of this program. It is telling that nearly every major political figure from both parties (John McCain, John Kerry, John Edwards, Bill Clinton, numerous campaign advisors/managers, etc.), with the notable exception of the President, has appeared as a guest on the show in recent months.