Re: Bright ideas save energy (Gazette, July 1).
According to satellite data, the earth has not gained any appreciable warming for the last 18 years. And in a Forbes magazine article by James Taylor on June 25 this year, the U.S. Climate Reference Network shows an average DECLINE in average U.S. temperatures in the last decade of .4 degrees. This would be about half of the so (mis-) called global warming. “Numerous studies suggest …” which studies? Who did these? Have they been retracted yet? In the IPPC Special Report on Extremes (SREX) quote: “There is medium evidence and high agreement that long term trends in normalized losses have not been attributed to natural or anthropogenic climate change.” In other words, even the IPPC disagrees with these “numerous studies.” It may come as a surprise, but at one time the earth did not have any oxygen and thus not CO2. Of course, neither were there any life forms. Human beings and animals exhale CO2. Using rough numbers, the average human exhales about 400 kg of CO2 per year. Therefore, if there are more humans then their CO2 produces more plant food. Perhaps one should Google the greening of the Sahel as an example.
There is a direct relationship between standard of living and fossil fuel use. For some reason I do not hear complaints from the many millions of people that inhale the smoke from their wood burning fire pit inside their homes. All the food, clothing, housing and computer keyboards are made and transported with fossil fuels. Going for zero emissions as a goal is both asinine and extremely short sighted. Unless the ultimate goal is going back to the stone age. I like my standard of living. I do not like the current fashion du jour to tell me what is appropriate.
Is the cute headline true? Let’s check some numbers as given in the front page article. I know this requires some simple math, which may be challenging for some. If 10 bulbs of LEDs at say $12.50 per bulb that is … let me see now … $125! If they save me $35 per year then it would take (I need a calculator for this) 3.57 years, not 1.25 years. If a normal, old fashioned incandescent would cost about $1.75 (had to look up an old receipt) then 10 would cost: $17.50! In other words, I could have bought almost 100 of the old bulbs for 10 of the new ones. LEDs have a five-year guarantee, unless you really by the good ones at double the price. Final piece to the puzzle: Last month I paid $.054677 plus a transaction fee of $.01 for a total of $ 0.064677 /kWh for my power. The rest of the charges are just disguised taxes. According to the article, I can save 10 per cent of that if I spend $125. Again, get the calculator out. 90 per cent of 0.064677 is 0.0582. At an average consumption of 400 kWh per month, I can “save” $2.60 per month. At that rate, I need 41 months, or 3.45 years, just to break even. And that does not include any opportunity cost of the extra funds expended. I can be dead in 3.5 years.
Joe Prins, St. Albert
