Compact Fluorescent Lamps -- The Shape of Things to Come

Compact Fluorescent Lights Make a Difference

One of the easiest ways to save energy, save money, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions is to use compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) instead of old-fashioned incandescent bulbs.

Compact fluorescent bulbs use between a fifth and a quarter as much electricity to produce the same amount of light. They also last six times as long or more. (For hard-to-reach bulbs this is a real advantage. Take it from someone who has to climb a ladder and stand on the top step to reach some of the fixtures in my home.)

True, CFLs look a little different from traditional bulbs. But I am sure that when they were first introduced light bulbs looked weird to people who were used to gas jets. And you can get CFLs that have a globe around them and look more like a bulb.

Here are some of the pros and cons of CFLs:

• They cost more than incandescent bulbs. (But sometimes utilities or others give them away or sell them at a discount.)
• Most of them don't work on a dimmer. Some of the new ones have overcome this problem, but check the packaging carefully if you want to use it on a dimmer switch.
• Some of them give light of a slightly different color than incandescent bulbs do, usually a little less yellow. Newer models are overcoming this problem. They come in both "cool" and "warm" types.
  
• Most CFLs don't produce their full light output immediately when you turn them on. They may seem dimmer than they should be for the first minute or two. This is why it makes sense to use CFLs mainly where you usually leave the light on for at least 15 minutes at a time.
• Since they contain tiny amounts of mercury (like all fluorescent lights) it is better not to just throw them in the trash. Most places have suggestions for safely disposing of CFLs. Check your local options through this EPA site. Some stores (like IKEA) have a place to drop them off.
• CFLs produce a lot less heat than equivalent incandescent bulbs. You can put your hand on a lighted CFL and not burn yourself. That's good if you are using air conditioning, but not as good if you are heating the house in winter. In most residential situations this shouldn't make much difference. You will notice that lamps are much cooler to the touch. (My desk lamp here is hardly even warm.) This is great for lights you need close to your work.
• They come in most of the same sizes and types as incandescent bulbs. You can even get them for "3-way" lamps.
• Since they take a lot less electricity, if you have a fixture that says "60 Watt Max." and you want more light out of it, you can get it. A 14-Watt CFL gives as much light as a 60-Watt incandescent bulb. A 20-Watt CFL is as bright as a 75-Watt regular bulb.
• They save money on electricity. (According to the calculator on the One Billion Bulbs site I am saving more than $100 per year.)
  
• They last much, much longer.
• Since they need less electricity, they reduce the greenhouse gas emissions you cause. (I am cutting my emissions by half a ton per year.)
  
• They show you care, yet they are much cheaper than a Prius.

So next time you have to replace a light bulb, consider using a compact fluorescent. You'll be saving money and helping the environment. That's green living.

(For more information about CFLs try the Energy Star site. If you want to join others in making the switch, check out the One Billion Bulbs project.)

Metric Needed: Dumb Climate Damage

How much damage do dumb, inconsiderate, wasteful acts of greenhouse gas emission do?

When someone roars away from a light to get to another red light a block away, how much damage is done by the excess greenhouse gases emitted compared to more climate-friendly driving? One polar bear? Two? One-tenth of a polar bear? We obviously need metrics to make clear what they are doing.

If someone causes the emission of greenhouse gases equivalent to one kilogram of CO₂, how much damage does that actually cause?

Well, it is obviously one thousandth the damage done by emission of one tonne CO₂e. But how much damage is that, in concrete terms any idiot can understand? One measure is in dollars and cents. What someone would pay for you not to emit that kilo of CO₂e,? That's currently about $0.0017 according to the Chicago Climate Exchange. If you purchased carbon offsets to cover that kilo it would cost you about $0.015.

Leaving a 75-Watt bulb burning for ten hours when not needed uses 0.75 kWh of electricity, and generates about 0.45 kg of CO₂ (U.S. average o.6 kg CO₂ emitted per kWh electricity generated).

Burning one gallon of gasoline unnecessarily (getting one mile per gallon worse mileage than you could have gotten while driving 20 miles, or driving 20 or so extra miles) generates about 9 kg of CO₂.

But how much damage does that kilogram of CO₂ really do?

This is a complex question of the marginal damage caused by one additional kilogram of CO₂. There are lots of studies that quantify this in terms of dollar costs, but none I can find put it in more emotive terms.

"Business as usual" or action to reduce emissions?

The Technical Summary of IPCC Working Group 2 Fourth Assessment Report examined several scenarios of future greenhouse gas emissions and impacts on climate. The A scenarios are more like "business as usual", while the B scenarios incorporate more aggressive efforts to reduce emissions.

The predicted consequences of these various scenarios are shown in the graph below.

How about this for a metric: The thoughtless, lazy, selfish emission of excess greenhouse gases contributes to the difference between the A and the B scenario forecasts. By 2050 those drivers of Hummers (14 miles per gallon) would have caused about an extra 0.5 degree of global warming. That additional warming would be related to the release of about a billion extra tonnes of CO₂ into the air.

It would be that billion extra tonnes of emissions which could push us past the possible "tipping point" of 2 degrees warming above pre-industrial levels. Maybe we should attribute all the additional consequences to those extra kilograms emitted in haste, ignorance, or greed.

The difference between less than 2 degrees of global warming compared to pre-industrial levels and more than 2 degrees is very significant. More than 2 degrees warming takes us into the range of very severe and much more unpredictable impacts of climate change. Those impacts still fall mainly on the poor, however.

(Note that none of the scenarios used by the IPCC will keep us from breaking the 2 degree barrier. To reach equilibrium at less than 2 degrees over pre-industrial levels (less than about 450 ppm CO₂) we must reduce global CO₂ emissions absolutely to about one-half of 1990 levels.)

Putting a human face on global warming

The United Nations Development Programme Human Development Report 2007/2008--Fighting climate change: Human Solidarity in a divided world, published last Tuesday, gives us some information we can use to evaluate impacts in human terms.

One finding is that some 360 million people may become climate change refugees over the next few decades. These are poor people who will be driven from their homes by floods, drought, disease, sea level increases, declines in crop productivity, etc. This doesn't count people who will have died due to starvation, disease or other causes directly connected to global warming.

360 million displaced / 1 billion tonnes excess emission: that's about a third of a ruined life per tonne, or the amount of excess CO₂ emitted by driving a car that gets 20 mile per gallon instead of 25 miles per gallon for 10,000 miles (less than one year's driving, for the average driver).

That 5 mpg penalty you are paying for aggressive driving, a bulbous car, or using a pick-up truck or SUV where a car would do--That's uprooting someone who has practically nothing and making sure they have absolutely nothing.

How Big A Problem Is Climate Change?

Will Global Climate Change be a Big Problem for Future Generations? And Who Cares?

Nearly everybody agrees that global climate change is real, and that it is mostly caused by our recent and continuing emissions of greenhouse gases. But how big a problem will it be? We have to answer this question in order to figure out how much to spend today to reduce the pace and impact of global warming in the future. Here's the question:

How much are you willing to give up today to minimize the costs human-caused global climate change will impose on future generations?

The answer to this question depends on two factors:

• How great will be the costs to society in the future due to climate change we could have prevented today? And
• How much do we care about the costs borne by future generations?

Most people will say, "Of course I care a lot about the pain I might be causing future generations!" But the evidence does not support this. How much would you pay today to prevent a million children from dying during the coming year from a cause that you could mitigate?

About one million children die of malaria annually in Africa. Distribution of insecticide-treated bed netting could prevent hundreds of millions of cases of malaria next year. To provide every susceptible family in Africa with such protection would cost around $1 billion (about 200 million nets at $5 each). The people of the rich nations of the world are evidently not willing to spend this amount (your share, if you live in a developed country, would be about $1).

Do we care more about future generations than we do about our fellow Earthlings alive today? Would you give up a dollar today to prevent a million people from dying due to the impact of global warming in 2100?

How Much Will It Cost Future Generations?

There are many studies attempting to quantify the losses future generations will suffer due to the climate change we and our forebears are causing. Two of the best are the Stern Review Report on the Economics of Climate Change and a recent study by Resources for the Future. These reports use different methods to come to similar conclusions:

Stern: "Using the results from formal economic models, the Review estimates that if we don’t act, the overall costs and risks of climate change will be equivalent to losing at least 5% of global GDP each year, now and forever. If a wider range of risks and impacts is taken into account, the estimates of damage could rise to 20% of GDP or more."

Sterner and Persson, RFF: "Total damages in our case amount to slightly more than 2 percent of the GDP for a temperature increase of 2.5°C."

Current world GDP is about $65 trillion (figured at purchasing power parity). A 2% loss today would be about $1.3 trillion (1.3x10¹²). Five percent would be more than $3 trillion. And that cost would probably not be distributed equitably, but would fall most heavily on the poor.

How Much Would It Cost Us Today To Spare Future Generations That Pain?

Of course the rich countries would be the ones which would have to make the sacrifice today, because:

• They have the money (people living on $1 per day can't afford to give up any consumption--they'd starve), and
• They caused the problem.

The Stern Report estimates that to avoid a 5% or greater loss of consumption on the part of our successors in the future we would have to give up only 1% of consumption today. ("In contrast, the costs of action -- reducing greenhouse gas emissions to avoid the worst impacts of climate change -- can be limited to around 1% of global GDP each year.") One percent of current global GDP is about $700 billion. The per capita share of that sum for people in the developed countries would be $700 per year.

Would you be willing to give up a few hundred dollars a year -- about $2 per day (say in carbon taxes) to prevent the worst effects of future global warming? Let your elected representatives know your answer.

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Sources

Stern Review Report on the Economics of Climate Change

RFF analysis

Malaria in Africa

More Insecticide-Treated Nets Needed For African Households

CIA World Factbook

More Hurricanes Due To Global Warming

Global Warming Means More Atlantic Tropical Storms and Hurricanes

A previous post discussed how global warming seems to be increasing the intensity of Atlantic hurricanes. At that time it wasn't certain that the number of tropical storms in the Atlantic was increasing along with global warming, too.

Now the evidence is in. Recent work shows that there has been a significant increase in the number of tropical storms and hurricanes in the Atlantic over the past century, and especially over the last 20 years. More detailed information is available in a slide presentation in this large pdf file.

The year 2006 was a respite after a series of recent major storms in 2004 and 2005, with only five hurricanes and four other named tropical storms. But it would have been an above average hurricane season in the early 1900s.

"These numbers are a strong indication that climate change is a major factor in the increasing number of Atlantic hurricanes," says study co-author Greg Holland of the National Center for Atmospheric Research. (See NCAR press release.) Although our ability to count tropical storms has improved a lot with the development of aircraft and satellites, "We are of the strong and considered opinion that data errors alone cannot explain the sharp, high-amplitude transitions between the climatic regimes, each with an increase of around 50 percent in cyclone and hurricane numbers, and their close relationship with SSTs," the authors state. (SSTs = sea surface temperatures, which have increased about 0.7 degrees C. in the Atlantic hurricane-forming region over the last century. The area of warm water has expanded also.)

Here is the abstract of the recent article by Holland and Webster

We find that long-period variations in tropical cyclone and hurricane frequency over the past century in the North Atlantic Ocean have occurred as three relatively stable regimes separated by sharp transitions. Each regime has seen 50% more cyclones and hurricanes than the previous regime and is associated with a distinct range of sea surface temperatures (SSTs) in the eastern Atlantic Ocean. Overall, there appears to have been a substantial 100-year trend leading to related increases of over 0.7°C in SST and over 100% in tropical cyclone and hurricane numbers. It is concluded that the overall trend in SSTs, and tropical cyclone and hurricane numbers is substantially influenced by greenhouse warming. Superimposed on the evolving tropical cyclone and hurricane climatology is a completely independent oscillation manifested in the proportions of tropical cyclones that become major and minor hurricanes. This characteristic has no distinguishable net trend and appears to be associated with concomitant variations in the proportion of equatorial and higher latitude hurricane developments, perhaps arising from internal oscillations of the climate system. The period of enhanced major hurricane activity during 1945–1964 is consistent with a peak period in major hurricane proportions.