How many Australians does it take to change a lightbulb?

[Muddypause]

Apparently only one. Someone has just emailed me the news that Aus. premier John Howard has banned all incandescent bulbs.

Is this right? Any of you Aussies care to elucidate?

[9ball]

I heard about this. Bit of a problem if you have dimmer switches or lamps that just won't take energy savers. Also what about home made projects like food driers using a lightbulb for heat? I suppose they are pretty pathetic things when you consider the reduction in CO2 though.

Tom

[Muddypause]

Quite so. I can see that encouraging their use for general lighting is a good thing, but I think there are situations where a fillament bulb is more suitable. An outright ban sounds rather alarming.

[Dendrobium]

It's all true, I do remember seeing that on the news.

At work we have had in a batch of dimamble low energy fluro bulbs to retrofit where people have got dimmers, it's all very new technology but I really don't like the look of them. I'm waiting to see how many we get sent back! The makers claim they're ok, but most of these things act differently in the real world.

[9ball]

I think the dimmer energy savers go 100%, 66% and 33% power in steps. Not really ideal. Hangon...

"Turn the bulb on as normal and let it get to full brightness. From here every switching OFF/ON will activate the dimming program of the lamp. The brightness of the lamp can be adjusted from 100% to 66%, further down to 33% and 5% with consecutive OFF/ON action within 3 seconds. The lamp can be reset to full brightness by simply switching off the lamp for more than 3 seconds than switching it back on again."

Sounds a bit rubbish to me.

Tom

[Dendrobium]

Yep, I'm trying to keep well away from them! At the end of the day you still get wasted energy with any of these item, all you get is to make them darker. Rotary normal dimmers are worse as they loose some of the energy though heat inside the dimmers, so just turning it down a little may not be of any help, added to that they tend to burn out/hum/wear out.

[Wombat]

I did hear about it but it didn't rate much of a mention in the local news. It is evidently a gradual phase out over 5 years. One wonders why they picked the humble light globe when enormous petrol sucking cars would have been a much more effective ban.

Well that's out pollies, masters of appearing to do something without really doing anything!

Incidentally, how many social workers does it take to change a lightbulb? Only one but the lightbulb has to WANT to change.......

Nev

[Boots]

Well, if this is true, it hasn't made it to the bush telegraph yet....

Which could be why they have allowed 5 years which will really mean 15... as we will have to effect our right to discuss it out here... real.... slooow.... like, and defer it to at least 6 Annual General Meetings of the Country Women and Farmers Associations etc to discuss the historical relevance, handleability and aesthetic impact.

I can hear them now. "Whasstha environment got to do wiv it, if you can't see it???? We need lights to know if sumpthins going wrong don't we? No, no, no. Thems can't take our lights. Nope. All against? Right, we'll just put that letter away till next year. Just write back to John and tell him we are very happy he wrote, and we need time to consider this. Right What's next?"

Don't get too excited yet.

[green-girl]

Ha ha Boots...