I promised myself I would go easy on the Live Earth spectacle, despite the easy pickings on the hypocrisy watch. But just how much can one skeptic take? Watching Sting admit he could do more to reduce his carbon footprint was one thing (ya think?), but the Pledge and the only "actions" being asked of those paying attention put me over the edge.
On the one hand, my man Al Gore and his fellow climate action campaigners did work a policy goal of an international treaty that calls for a 90 percent reduction in "global pollution" by developed countries (50 percent for everyone else) into the pledge, which is nice, and in line with the best advice coming from the climatology community. But where's the schedule? Without one, any such treaty would be meaningless.
And when you get down to the personal commitments that go along with the pledge, there's a big gap. They are:
1. Change 4 incandescent bulbs to compact fluorescents.
2. Shop for energy-efficient appliances.
3. Shut off electrical equipment not in use.
4. Take public transit or carpool at least once a week.
5. Forward a Live Earth message for 5 friends
6. Add your name to the Live Earth pledge.
All of which might, just maybe, reduce the average Dave Matthews fan's carbon footprint by 20 percent or so. Instead:
1. Change ALL your light bulbs to CFLs.
2. Shop less; but if you absolutely need new stuff, buy green.
3. Use electrical equipment less
4. Take transit/carpool whenever possible.
5. Send a Live Earth message to all your friends and family
6. Add your name to a letter your send to your Congressmen, senators, state legislators, county commissioners and city councillors.
and:
7. Do your best to ensure that the candidates of your choice in the next local, regional or national elections respect the science that informs the climate change debate and support policies in line with the science is telling is necessary to forestall catastrophic climate change.
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There's a huge disconnect between the amount of change that (at best current estimate) is needed and the feel-good changes everyone seems to be advocating. Either it's a "change a lightbulb and you're done" situation, in which case it's not worth all the hype, or it isn't, in which case it'll be a big problem if people keep thinking that it is.
Check this US Carbon Footprint Map out, has United States Interactive Carbon Footprint Map, illustrating Greenest States. This site has all sorts of stats on individual State energy consumptions, demographics and State energy offices.
http://www.eredux.com/states/
The compact fluorescents are my personal pet peeve. Yes, they give out more light for less watts than incandescents. So what?
What is the environmental footprint of the compact fluorescent? Those beasts contain a wider selection of nastier chemicals than incandescents. They also have electronics in the base. Both their manufacture and the disposal is definitely a higher load for the environment than that caused by the conventional light bulbs. "But they save energy, and that is a good thing!" is the rallying cry of the armchair environmentist.
In my location, the time when I need artificial lighting just happens to coincide with the time I need extra heating of the house as well. The "waste" energy from the incandescents provides some of the heat.
Of course it is reasonable to optimise the combination of heat sources. Electrical heating may well be the most expensive form, but if your house is on electrical heating anyway, then it makes no difference at all.
If you happen to live in climate where you push heat out of the house with air conditioners, then of course every watt of heat you don't bring in the house makes the cooling load lighter. It is amazing, though, how people managed to live in those conditions before the technological age and the environmentally friendly air conditioning.
Juuro - the comparision is somewhat complicated by the fact that CFLs have a (much) longer lifetime than incandescents, so the embodied energy and impacts of manufacture are amortised over a longer period. Nevertheless, I too would like to see a good, detailed whole-lifecycle analysis.
But either way, the reductions you can achieve by replacing your lights are pretty minimal. I keep pretty detailed records (weekly meter readings for the last couple of years) and there is no way you could finger the day when I replaced all my lightbulbs with CFLs from that data. Whatver difference it did make (I estimate at most 2% of total electricity) was in the noise. Stopping running 2 PCs 24/7, on the other hand, accounted for over 70% of total electricity (but that's still less than 10% of total energy, as by far my biggest contributor is gas for space heating in winter).
We have been using CFLs for several years, every since Costco started selling them. They may save a little in electricity, but I can assure you, they do not last 10 times longer. I don't think you will really find many of those vain "Live Earth" wackos using them because of the quality of the light. My daughter recently changed her hair color from her natural light brown to red, and I did not see the change due the the CFL bulbs (she was not happy with me.) I remember when in college at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo in the 1980s, the same type of people who performed at Live Earth were being arrested in San Luis Obispo for blockading the nuclear power plant at Diablo Canyon. I suspect many of the same wackos will be supporting nuclear power soon due to the lack of co2 produced by such plants. In conclusion, do you know who produces the most nuclear reactors in the world and who's subsidiary companies devoted the most time broadcasting live earth over the air, satellite and online in the US?