Re: looking for good cordless phone sets

[Marc_F_Hult <MFHult@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, 22 Feb 2007 18:31:31 GMT, nobody@xxxxxxxxxxxx (Dave Houston) wrote in
message  <45ddd975.160396687@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>:

>"Robert Green" <ROBERT_GREEN1963@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>>It sure makes more sense to cap the CO2 at the source, rather than way
>>downstream. Trying to modify 100 years of consumer behavior via fiat would
>>have a minimal impact, at best, on the problem.
>
>I read the article this morning. My view has always been that the payback is
>higher the higher up the food chain you work.
>

ROTFL. Seems that we can add Biology to Physics, Economics, and Geology on
the list of the courses flunked ...

The highest part of the food chain *is* the consumer.

This is why the first of the conservation 3 R's is to Reduce use.

If you eliminate consumption = _demand_ you eliminate the mining and
transport of the coal, building of additional power plants, inefficiency of
coal-> electricity conversion, waste heat pollution, mercury and other
pollutant emissions, all of which precede the need to sequester.

>Only 1/3 of the energy in coal gets converted to electricity so any
>improvement in conversion efficiency gives more power with no increase in
>emissions. If you combine higher efficiency with sequestration it's even
>better. That makes a lot more sense than looking for a few tenths of a
>percent reduction by replacing all residential incandescents with CFLs.

Arithmetic 101 :  Every single use (eg, residential lighting) is only a small
fraction of the total use.

If every use could be reduced as much as residential lighting, we would be
much farther down the road to a better balance. The solution will consist in
reducing _each_ use to the extent practical and possible and _also_ increase
efficiency and reduce pollutant loading at the point of energy conversion.

Reductions in energy use for residential lighting was preceded by reductions
in commercial lighting including other (non-compact) fluorescent lighting.

And by reductions in residential refrigeration.

And in residential and commercial air conditioning.

And in residential furnaces and boilers

And reductions in heating load through better insulation.

And -- the list goes on and on.

Why don't you rant endlessly about _these_ incremental reductions that have
been put in place and are continuing? They are also all only small parts of
the overall problem. But in aggregate, the small parts are the _whole_
problem.

Is it because you didn't paint yourself into a corner on these topics as you
did about CFLs while on your gratuitous, self-indulgent  bashing of
academicians and government scientists?  On whose every pronouncement you now
seem to (finally) hang ?

...Marc
Marc_F_Hult
www.ECOntrol.org