Totally agree with you Richard. Being that I work on energy efficiency,
lighting is indeed a small piece of the total and moving to CFLs or LEDs will
not solve climate change. Nevertheless, it is a start... and remember that it
is a good way to make people realize that there are options when using any
energy-device... people talk about the lights going out, never about the
electricity went out... so getting them to adopt a CFL is in my view a way to
change their cognitive map and hopefully when they go to buy a refrigerator or
car, they will think about how much energy it uses...
WE definitely need to do much MORE and NOW - before the health of this Planet
is compromised beyond our ability to survive the changes that will ensue... and
I'm frankly much more worried about humans propensity to violence especially
over resources, than Climate Change.. To be blunt, a nuclear winter is
something I worry about more...
Thus it is in all our interests to redouble our efforts, to bring as many
people as we can, of all ages, to join us to change how humans are abusing the
planet.
Have a great day
Rafael
-Original Message-
From: Wallace, Richard [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: rldavis [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Global Environmental Education
gep-ed@listserve1.allegheny.edu
Sent: Fri, 28 Nov 2008 6:08 am
Subject: RE: Green Living Tips
I am looking forward to seeing the FSB list, but I think the debate is still
open as to whether the savings from changing light bulbs is or is not=2
0trivial. I find the ongoing discussion of CFLs and similar prescriptions for
change increasingly distracting from what is going to be needed to address the
problems at hand. Lighting accounts for 5-10% of energy usage in the U.S
(though nearly 25% of our electricity usage). The number of CFLs in use
accounts for some small percentage of that 5-10%. It's not a small amount of
energy in kilowatts, perhaps, but in terms of overall impact on energy usage in
the U.S., switching to CFLs is small change.
This is probably a good time to recall the Thanksgiving piece that our esteemed
GEP-Ed founder, Mike Maniates, had published almost exactly a year ago in the
Washington Post, entitled Going Green? Easy Doesn't Do it. The link is here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/21/AR2007112101856.html.
It just scratches the surface, but is an excellent editorial on the
question of on what scale do we need to be considering change? This past year
has seen a lot of talk and paper devoted to this issue of scale - books by
Thomas Friedman, Van Jones, and others, the policy proposals Al Gore has been
making. The N.Y. Times' editorial board ran a piece _yesterday_ (again, Happy
Thanksgiving!) about the need for higher-level thinking - specifically,
marrying economic and environmental policy RIGHT NOW, in this critical time for
both (it's here: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/27/opinion/27thu1.html?_r=1).
It's food for thought as we (in the U.S.) dig into our holiday leftovers.
Cheers,=0
A
Rich
--
Richard L. Wallace
Associate Professor and Chair
Environmental Studies Program
Ursinus College
Collegeville, PA
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of rldavis
Sent: Thu 11/27/2008 4:25 PM
To: Global Environmental Education
Subject: Green Living Tips
Rado-there is a listserve run by an Environmental Psychologist in New Brunswick
called “fostering sustainable behavior” (spelled the US way): [EMAIL PROTECTED]
You do have to be approved to join the list. I think that the archives, located
at http://www.cbsm.com/forums/search.lasso are open. It is loaded with tips,
has great (but fairly low volume discussion and the guy who runs it (but whose
name I’ve forgotten) is very interesting. I heard him speak at a Climate
Project “reunion” in Boston (that’s the group of Al Gore trained climate change
presenters). By the way, he spoke specifically to idling your car and the
savings are not trivial, nor are the savings from changing light bulbs. There
are dollar savings too. He differentiated between easy things to do that
individually were small (such as changing light bulbs) but, because so many
bulbs were being change collectively, had a huge impact, and those mega things
that saved a lot of carbon through a single action, but were very, very hard to
achieve both technically and socially.
Larry Davis
--
*
R. Laurence Davis, Ph.D.
Professor of E
arth and Environmental Sciences
University Research Scholar
Department of Biology and Environmental Sciences
University of New Haven
300 Boston Post Road
West Haven, Connecticut 06516
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Office: 203-932-7108 Fax: 203-931-6097
UNIVERSITY OF NEW HAVEN-
A Leader in Experiential Education
*
