Lots of light bulbs but not bright idea

NPower has just shipped out a ba-gillion energy efficient light bulbs, free of charge without request to its customers.

It has done this because a ban has just been implemented where unsolicited light bulbs are no longer allowed.
Why is it so desperate to give away light bulbs in the first place you ask?
Well there are regulations that the government has given out saying that the energy companies have to pay to make us all more carbon efficient and giving out bulbs like they are going out of fashion is a cheap way to do this.
The problem is that some peoples light aren't going to fit the bulbs and so they are just going to be wasted.
So to break it down to cut down waste they are producing more waste.

Don't get me wrong I don't think that it is a bad idea over all. Even if people don't need them immediately, only an idiot would throw them out. Therefore they will get used eventually, but this whole scheme shows just how unimaginative the companies and governments are being about all this.

They are pledging to cut carbon and they are are trying to do so by getting people to use less, less products, less food, less meat, less electricity, less petrol and so on. There are two problems with this:
1. This sort of change will only shave small amounts of carbon off our usage, if there were big savings to be made, chances are it would have been done already.
2. It goes against the whole character of the modern world.

Allow me to elaborate the second point.

The world is based on more, not less. Problems are solved by more and new, rarely are they solved with old and less.
There is good reason for this being the case. Lets take nuclear weapons as an example. There were lots of protests for nuclear disarmament in the last century. No one listened and a lot of people wasted their time. I'm sorry to say this but if you were in such a protest, you obviously didn't think that far ahead.

Once nuclear weapons were invented, they couldn't be 'uninvented'. If everyone instantly listened to the berks who were protesting it wouldn't have 'uninvented' the bomb. In fact it would probably have the reverse effect.

Once the US had the bomb Russia had to get it in order to be on a level playing field, but that was all. But essentially it was just a deterrent, no one would use it, because if they did they would have several coming their way too.

If the US burned all its papers and everyone gave up their bombs then that would give some real psychopath (read N Korea/Iran/Iraq/Libya) a real reason to make the bomb, because they would be the ONLY people to have it and therefore they would actually be in a position to use it.
Even if there was an international convention that everyone agreed to not to use nuclear weapons, the type of person who wants to blow millions of people into the next life, isn't the type of person who cares much for international conventions. As soon as the bomb was on the scene it was here to stay, the only thing which was more of a deterrent was more sophisticated bombs, or new anti missile technology. New, not old, more not less.

Now lets apply this to carbon. It is the same. If you shave off 5% of your carbon at a cost of £8Bn it means nothing because China is gong to increase their carbon by ten times as much and they are then going to make money from it. This means that those who care get weaker and those who don't get stronger.

The more restraints you put on your industries the more expensive they become and the better the prices of a Chinese factory look in comparison. Whatever you cut out, someone else will expand to fill the gap.

So essentially I'm saying sure having something that 5% more efficient is good, but it isn't going to save the world. And cutting things out altogether just make you poor as a country and as such you just lose influence... and with that goes your chance to change the rest of the world... which by the way, unless you're American or Chinese, is the bit that counts when it comes to carbon.

So then, how does my more and new policy work?

Simple instead of piddling into the wind by making energy companies buy you light bulbs (which by the way they are allowed to increase their charges for, so it is forcing you to buy them rather that getting anything for free in reality) they should be made to spent 10-25% of their profits on covering the sub Sahara in trees or solar panels. Either one, I don't care. Trees will taking carbon on a massive scale for the rest of time. Solar panels will give us free energy. We will have MORE energy and new technology can make it more and more efficient. I don't know how many panels £100m gets you but I bet it is a decent amount.

Instead of becoming weaker because some moron is complaining about air travel, you country because stronger because you can manufacture the panels in your own company giving you more new jobs.

Or you get more new jobs planting trees, heck you could even run a gap year program where unemployed 18-25 olds spend their time baking next to a pool and planting trees (while not getting paid obviously). Good for bored unemployed, good for the environment.

The idea of less, just cripples an economy, decreases employment and standard of life. More energy production from new methods increases jobs, provides free energy and thus makes countries more efficient and increases the standard of life. Hippies, I hope you're listening.

Copenhagen is falling apart, oh dear...

Copenhagen is falling/has fallen apart apparently.

Gutted.

I really thought that for a moment the world would be united in its fight against a common enemy and they humanity would reach out and join together to take a sweeping blow against this powerful foe.

Actually that is codswallop. I didn't think that at all.

But let me explain why:

Lets be honest, climate change is an interesting problem. Most interesting of course because in reality we have no idea whether is anything to do with us and arguably whether it is even happening at all.
No I know that this is heresy to most people and as a result I should be burned at the stake, ok not burned that would release more CO2, they think I'd need to be topped using organically grown cyanide. But let me explain how someone who has done little to no research can be pretty sure we have no idea:
how long have we had the ability to record the temperature of the world accurately? 10 years? 15? 20? 30? It is undoubtedly under 50 years because the first man made satellite was in space in 1957, and that wasn't checking temperatures, it was doing nothing but sending out a ping every now and again to say it had made it.

That means we have a tiny amount of time where we are actually aware of what changes are being made. This means that we have no idea what is going on at all. Imagine measuring my height changes between the ages of 15 and 18. That is three years out of a probable 75. This is more of my age than 40 years is of the earths age. But imagine the conclusions you would have if you made assumptions based on those 3 years of my life. It would mean I'd be 70ft tall by the time I'm 75, it would mean that would expect to be shaving the palms of my hands by 25.

Having a tiny amount of information about the worlds temperatures and drawing conclusions from it is tantamount to making a guess.

That is not to say that I think it isn't happening. I would be a fool to explain that we don't know anything and then draw from that that everything is fine. It just means we don't have the slightest clue.

Next is the small detail that people don't like, the worlds temperature has been falling for the last ten years. Is this conclusive? No, of course not, haven't you been listening to what I just said about short periods of time? What does it mean? Once again, we have no idea what is going on.

Then we get on to what we do know. What we do know is that every human being is liable to use what they know to help their own ends. I'm not saying everyone does do this, but this should always be taken as a possibility.

So why would the world politicians jump on to this? Well everyone knows that smoking is bad for you. It is a drug that gets you addicted and them kills you. However when this was discovered, it had already taken off and everyone was already smoking. This gave the government something wonderful. A cash cow. Every year for years more tax has been added to the cost of tobacco, and alcohol. The government doesn't even need to both justifying itself anymore. It say does it. The fact is smoking is evil and therefore should be taxed to 'help people give up'. Except the government doesn't really care if you give up, on the one hand you'll cost them more via the NHS but in the short term (which is all a present government will care about) it gives you lots of revenue.

But we in the UK have 'big government' which is a nice way of saying the government loves spending our money and thinks it does a better job of it than we do. Which is why it gives money to companies to teach 14 year old joy riders how to drive so that when they steal cars they drive them safely (I kid you not) and they offer Iraqi families £150,000 to go home because it is cheaper than them staying here and being entitled to all the benefits. Neither of these examples come from any paper I've read, they have come from people who were involved or close to those involved.

This means a couple of pence on fags (that is cigarettes not the pejorative term for homosexuals for any Americans out there) and booze just isn't going to pay the bills. Then the knight in shining armour arrives! CLIMATE CHANGE!

Hurrrrah! Now everything is evil and so everything can be taxed until we're penniless!
Everyone who does anything ever, anyone who is useful to society in anyway needs a car (unless you live in London where you can survive without one). If you leave your house anywhere outside the M25 London ring road you are going to need four wheels to get about. The government now has a licence to tax this as much as it wants.
Petrol? Tax it
Roads? Tax them
Cars? Tax them too
Cooking oil (which is carbon neutral when used in a diesel engine) Tax that too!

If people moan because you are taking away what they have worked hard to obtain, just tell them that it is for their own good! You have an excuse now. When they say they need their cars to work, tell them that they need to use more public transport. Public transport isn't a viable alternative (you know that, MP's work in London, the one place they could actually use public transport and they of course have several driven cars to take them around to where they need to go) but who cares about the fact it doesn't work, but it sounds like you have an answer and a 'good' reason for taking people's money off them.

But why stop at cars? Tax flights too! Pretty much anything you like really because at some stage everything has to be transported by something with an engine.

Am I just being cynical though? Well lets think about what actually causes global warming. Releasing CO2. Now just lowering the amount of CO2 we make surely won't make much of a difference because the same effect will be achieved just over a longer period of time. Unless all the trees absorb the lower amount of CO2 being produced... which leads me on to my point. If the gov really give a crap about it why aren't they planting trees?

This is cheap (I bet you could even rope some people into doing it for free if they really care about this stuff) and it would have much greater impact over the years because it would suck in all the CO2 which is being made, taking it straight out of the atmosphere. It would be really pretty too! There are many areas of the UK (and I'm sure every other nation) that cannot be farmed because they are inaccessible or the soil isn't of the right quality. Most of these places used to have trees on them until our ancestors cut them down for various reasons. In fact North Africa was wooded until the Romans arrived. Now if the government really cared about these sorts of things they could easily start afforesting the moors and other grounds.

It would probably increase the tourism in the area and for years to come it would act to absorb tons of CO2 every month. When successful this could be implemented over all of Europe and most of the world.

Of course the government isn't going to do this. You see, you can't tax trees. You can't fly to Denmark drink some good wine argue 'for your cause' and then come home and make money taxing businesses by planting trees and actually helping the environment. All you do is... well help the environment; and what government cares about that?