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Few months ago, I posted in my Tamil blog about how human beings have been indiscriminately exploiting and misusing the natural resources in the past fifty years or so, how such indiscriminate activities have contributed to things like global warming, climate change, environmental pollution, etc., how it is affecting us today and how, if we as individuals can make small changes to our lifestyle and outlook, can significantly contribute towards improving the situation.

One person who commented on the post couldn’t accept the fact that global warming is caused by human activities. He said,

What about the other side of the coin? Earth is about 3 billion years old and just 50 years of human action could change the world climate - total farce. Don’t get me wrong, if this the only way we reduce carbon emissions, the change is more than welcome but the premise is still debatable.

Here is my reply to the comment:

Let’s be clear about one thing here. It’s not that just 50 years of human action is affecting 3 billion year old Earth. All the climate change caused by human action doesn’t affect in a significant way the Earth operates. But this climate change caused by our activities does affect in a significant way our life on Earth. Am I making myself clear? It’s like a mosquito sitting on your hand and sucking your blood. It’s not of much significance to you. It takes less than a second for you strike a blow, finish the life of the mosquito and carry on with your work. But you getting rid of the mosquito is very significant from the mosquito’s point of view. It’s a question of life and death for the mosquito. In much the same way, we are sucking away earth’s resources resources in an indiscriminate manner and polluting the environment, the result of which is climate change and this climate change has become a life and death issue for us human beings, but it doesn’t mean a thing to Earth.

Debates have happened over this issue in the past, but now it’s been proved and widely accepted that climate change is caused very much by human activities. So, there is no point in further specluation. It’s time for action. And it’s utter foolishness to say that we have to ’save the Earth’. But we definitely have to take action and save our own lives on this planet.

I first came to know about this film called “The Secret” a few months ago, and I’ve been hearing about it a lot in the last month or so from various sources. Last week, I finally got to watch the film. If you don’t already know about The Secret, it’s a ’self-help’ documentary film that talks about the power of positive thinking and the “Law of Attraction” — a law which can be roughly stated as, “You attract to you what you think of the most”. There is nothing new and there’s nothing secret about the concepts discussed in this film. Everything said in the film has been publicly pronounced by great thinkers and successful people all over the world from time to time in some form or the other. … Continue reading ‘‘The Secret’, ‘Law of Attraction’ and positive thinking’ »

Australia will be the first country to ban energy hungry yellow incandescent bulbs and replace them with energy efficient compact fluorescent lamps (CFL) in the next three years. According to Australian environment minister, this move would cut the country’s greenhouse gas emissions by 4 million tonnes by 2012. A similar idea to promote energy efficient bulbs was proposed in the US state of California last month. Cuba launched a campaign two years ago to replace incandescent bulbs in the country with energy saving lamps and Venezuela has been replacing the bulbs and installing photovoltaic systems for the past few months.

Why fluorescent?

Incandescent bulbs waste about 95% of the power consumed as heat emission and convert only 5% as light energy, while fluorescent lamps convert 20% of the power consumed as light. Incandescent bulbs typically have a lifetime of 500 to 2000 hours while CFLs can last upto 8000 hours. CFLs use about a quarter of the power of incandescent bulbs. For example, a 15 watt CFL produces the same amount of light as a 60 watt incandescent bulb. We have been replacing incandescent bulbs in my house with CFLs for the past year, and the results are impressive — it has cut electricity bills upto 30%. More importantly, using fluorescent lamps and CFLs would mean 70% cut in emission of green house gases (CO₂) and thus, environmental friendly.

On the flip side, CFLs contain traces of mercury and can be a cause of pollution when disposed in large quantities. One solution is recycling, but for now at least, advantages of CFLs outweigh the disadvantages. Looking forward into the future, one potentially more efficient alternative could be LED based lamps (solid-state lighting).

Related links

• Complact fluorescent lamp
• Australia to change ligntbulbs to curb warming
• Plan to ban standard light bulbs in California
• Venezuela installs solar panels
• Why ban bulbs?
• City tries to cut energy bills with LEDs

Update: Greenpeace India has urged the Indian Government to ban incandescent light bulbs and advocate use of energy-efficient compact fluorescent lamps.