Banning Incandescent Light bulbs

If any machine is running fast enough for the electronic balasts to show the "stationary" effect I think you'd notice some other effects. :-) ...lew...

Reply to
Lew Hartswick
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Damn, I just spent 2 hours writing a long message in reply to this stupidity and then I stupidly hit the wrong button and lost it all. Fuck. I don't have time to re-write it now. Maybe later.... (just wanted to share my stupidity with everyone).

Here's the short version. Everyone will probably like the shorter version better anyway.

Man alone has caused the CO2 levels to rise to levels unseen on the earth in the past 20 million years. And we did in less than 100 years - most of it in the past 50. Want to see the graphs? Here they are:

Here's the 50 year graph:

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And here's the 400,000 year graph with a 1000 year overlay:

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Read the wikipedia article on CO2 for more data:

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To try and argue that "Man is but a flee on the back of the Earth. Mother Nature hardly notices us." is just absurd. Man is changing the earth in ways Mother nature alone has never done. We are in uncharted, and dangerous waters. To ignore that fact is to risk life as we know it.

No one is going to give up their industrial high energy life style on the chance that the CO2 levels will spell disaster. Giving up our industrial life style is the disaster we are trying to avoid. It makes no sense to create the disaster in an attempt to avoid it. But it also makes no sense to pretend we aren't running full speed into very dangerous uncharted waters because of man's impact on the global environment, and it makes no sense not to do the simple things we can do to slow down that head-long plunge into the unknown (like giving up incandescent light bulbs in all places where doing so doesn't create more danger than it removes).

Reply to
Curt Welch

That'd be true if the phosphors are short-glowing, but I think their cycle is significantly longer than 1/60th of a second.

Hm. I just tried it with a modern CFL (GE brand) and my lathe and can't get the effect you state. I know what you mean, I just can't get it to do it.

DC lighting is always an option, unless they're going to ban headlights too.

Reply to
Dave Hinz

Despite the fact the issue is caused "Global Warming", it's not about the temperature as much as it's about the danger man's impact on the environment is creating.

The undisputed fact in this is what man has done to the CO2 levels in the past 100 years, and the unknown risks we have created by raising the level of this known greenhouse effect gas to levels unseen on the earth in the past 20 million years. Through the past 5 ice ages over the past 400,000 years, CO2 levels ranged from something like 150 to 300 ppmv. In less than

100 years man's effect on the environment has caused CO2 levels to rise to a current value of 383 ppm. Man's actions are causing it to rise about 1.5 ppmv per year and the rate is accelerating. No one knows for sure how much total effect this will have, or when, but we are taking a very real risk by not taking actions to try and slow this down.

I also don't believe there is any real doubt left among the scientific community at this point that the CO2 levels are in fact causing a global warming. Over the past 20 or so years, there was much debate about if the warming was anything other than normal cyclic weather changes. But that has all changed now. The scientist I'm fairly sure now agree. But what they don't know, is how much change it will have into the future, and what all the fallout of that change will be. But the potential for disaster in the next 50 to 100 years is huge.

To pretend it is not happening, is what only a fool would do at this point.

It's also equally foolish to think the correct action is to make drastic changes in our life styles. Drastic changes in our life styles can cost lives as well (like a machinist getting his finger ripped off because they made the mistake of thinking the lath wasn't spinning after they took away his incandescent bulb).

What we need to do, is take any steps that are reasonable, to slow down man's impact on the earth, so we can buy more time to study the effects before the shit hits the fan for real.

It's the fact that we can't predict the future that is preventing us from acting now. Over reacting to potential risk is often more risky than than doing nothing. But when there are options available like converting to CF lamps that are of minimal risk, it's just stupid not to do it. It will buy the scientists a little extra time to better understand the risks, and to find more ways to reduce our impact without giving up our high energy life style which is the source of most our current safety and well being.

Making jokes about cavemen and ice ages really is not the thing the world needs on this issue right now. Pretending man is too small to have any real effect on the Earth is just wrong. This is an issue everyone needs to understand. It's an issue everyone needs to do whatever they are able to do, to help.

For me, I still drive an SUV. My wife just bought a new SUV that gets worse millage than her last car. I'm learning to weld so I can suck up more power in a day than I've saved in a year from switching to CF bulbs. My hands aren't very green. But I don't joke about the dangers we are creating or pretend it's not real. Man has only just begun to f*ck up the environment. If you aren't impressed with what we did in the last 50 years, just wait another 50 years without doing anything and see what we can really do once China learns to burn energy like the US.

Reply to
Curt Welch

CF bulbs generally contain a switching power supply with a switching frequency greater than 40 KHz. Flicker is not an issue.

Kevin Gallimore

Reply to
axolotl

The phosphors have very short persistence. I was able to measure the frequency of a CFL with a photodetector and scope while trying to determine if I could use CFLs for a machine vision system with sub-millisecond exposure times. The frequency was up around 30kHz.

Ned Simmons

Reply to
Ned Simmons

All mine are currently less than a year old so I don't have any data points to provide yet. I've included a few in "questionable" locations such as two in my garage door opener which gets extra vibration and multiple short cycles every day. And a few in closets and other high cycle but low usage locations. It will be interesting to see how long they last - but it might take a few years to get enough data to know much.

So far, none of the 30 or so lights I installed have stopped working.

Reply to
Curt Welch

Yeah, that's the one. But he's _special_, you see.

Reply to
Dave Hinz

Hm. So why can't I get my lathe to look like it's standing still then? Also, at 1800 RPM, it makes a hella noise.

Reply to
Dave Hinz

The "never" I'm talking about there is the sudden (100 year time frame) rise in CO2 which man has created. I am not talking about the the small temperature changes which have happened. Despite the name, the global warming issue is not as much about the current small temperature changes as it is about the effect man is having on the environment which, over time, is very likely to cause dramatic changes to the planet (where "time" is only 50 to 100 years from now). Nothing short of asteroid impacts has caused such a sudden and swift change to the balance of the ecosystem that I know of. And man is just getting started at his global-reaching changes.

Of course, saying "never" is probably wrong - lots of stuff has happened in the past 4 BY that we know very little about on time scales as short as 100 years. But scientists currently seem to believe the planet has not seen these levels of CO2 for something like 20 MY and they have very strong evidence that it has not happened in the past 1 MY. Over most the evolution of our species, the CO2 levels have never been this high - and there is currently no sign that they are going to stop going higher any time soon because we are not going to stop burning things any time soon.

Reply to
Curt Welch

Well, if the light is flashing, it should flash twice per cycle, or 120 times per second. So that's 7200 rpm to make it stand still. At 1800 RPM, you should see it frozen in 4 different positions.

But it seems to me that the light won't flash. It will probably pulsate with the current to some extend and actually produce light for some sizable percentage of the cycle (how high does the voltage have to get in each cycle to make it produce some light?). Between the blur effect you might get from the light not flashing, but instead, being on for some percentage of time around the peak of each half cycle, combined with the the 4x position effect you would get at 1800 RPM, maybe there's just too much blur to see it?

Now I feel the need to do some tests in my shop!!!

First I think I need to do some testing with a photo diode and scope. I think I might have one around here somewhere....

Reply to
Curt Welch

I would propose then, that since my lathe won't run at 7200 RPM, this for me is a non-issue.

Hence, not a problem. Therefore, object for real reasons, not fabricated ones.

Automotive timing light?

Reply to
Dave Hinz

Because you haven't got it up to 60 x 30,000 => 1,800,000 RPM yet.

Ned Simmons

Reply to
Ned Simmons

I don't have one...

A quick test with the drill press made it clear there was a strobe effect caused by the lights if I looked hard. I could clearly see the chunk key holes spinning backwards at a slower speed - but it was all a big blur and not anything someone would mistake for standing still. My press only has 4 different speeds and none of them are close enough to the the required speed to make it stand still (I wonder of this might not be an accident?).

Another quick test with my variable speed hand drill showed I could regulate the speed to make the rubber grip ribs in the chunk stand still. But the blur was far too great for anyone to every mistake it for standing still. That' was with 40W shop fluorescent fixtures. Even with a lathe spinning the correct speed, I don't think anyone would be fooled into thinking it was standing still because the blur would be too bad with these lights. The light seems to stays on for too long in each cycle.

Maybe some other brand or, or size, or color light would have a shorter and brighter flash of light which would created a dangerous condition.

Anyone who has seen how a strobe light can fool you into thinking a fan is standing still knows how dangerous it could be under the right conditions. The fact that the fan is making lots of noise and the "standing still" fan is blowing your hair back isn't enough to keep you from doing something stupid at times. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that just the wrong type of fluorescent light could fool someone into believing their lathe was standing still - just long enough to loose some important body part. But it sounds like you are safe.

Reply to
Curt Welch

take that you pinko bastard

Reply to
Tony

but if you need the lights on, use incandescent, its easier on your ugly face

Reply to
Tony

As I've explained in other posts now, the issues with global warming everyone needs to face up to is not the current very small temperature changes - but the substantial changes man is making to the environment that we know is dangerous - mainly the constant CO2 increase. We know this is dangerous because we know it's already starting to cause global weather effects. It's not even very important how small the current effects are relative to other natural cycles because so far, no one has figured out how to stop what man is doing without shutting down civilization as we know it

- which won't happen. People will die in huge numbers before they give up their high energy high technology life styles. It's just the facts of what we are facing.

As I said above, no one can yet accurately predict where these global changes are leading, or when things will happen. Like the web page above shows, current predictions by one group if sea level changes for the next

100 years were cut in half. Hell, as I said before, they can't predict how much it will rain in the next 3 days - how can they possible know how much the sea level will actually rise in the next 100 years with any real type of accuracy?

There could easily be stabilizing effects that will counter the warming that we don't yet understand. But there could just as likely be run-away feedback effects that throws us into a completely different global climate pattern that wipes out most of the current global food infrastructure. We just don't know what these changes are going to do.

But what we do know, is that man's actions is causing global changes to the Earth in ways that are _potentially_ very dangerous. And if we can do things to slow down those changes without giving up much in return, we should do it.

There's also this thing called Global dimming:

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There's been a measured drop in the amount of sunlight reaching the earth's surface over the past 50 or so years. The effect is hard to measure so it's still very much in question as to what's happening. But it's believed that man made pollutants are the main cause - they cause more light to be reflected back in space. Some of the mechanism of this is a bit complex because the pollutants are believed to be changing the structures of clouds by causing the formation of larger water droplets around the pollutants which then causes the clouds to be more reflective.

These types of effects might be masking and counting acting the full impact of global warming caused by the CO2. The potential danger here is that if we clean up the air of pollutants, we might reverse global dimming without reversing global warming effects, and end up with sudden increase in the global warming.

The danger here is not from the known. The danger here is that man has advanced to the point that our industry is, without a doubt, having important global effects on the Earth. We are shaking the only life boat in the universe that we know can protect is from space. If we mess this life boat up, we are SOL. We have no other place to go.

Your WSJ article concludes with this:

America needs to understand clearly what is happening and why before we sign onto U.N. environmental agreements, shut down our industries and power plants, and limit our economic growth.

One one side, I agree with one basic point the article was making. We don't know the full risks we are facing with the global changes man is creating to the planet. And to act too quickly, or in ways too drastic, can very easily do more harm than good.

But what I don't agree with, is the simple fact that we know without a doubt that man's advanced industry is now having global effects on the earth that are very risky. And we know that messing with a complex ecosystem is something that almost always leads to drastic change that we have never been able to control. Every time we try to "fix" what we messed up with mother nature, it seems we only make things worse. This is because the complex processes at work regulating the Earth are just too complex for us to understand most the time. It's beyond our understanding.

The only known solution is to not mess it up in the first place. But we are "messing up" the environment. We have thrown mother nature off of the cycle she has been in for the past million years and we did in less than

100 years. This is going to cause Mother nature to react in ways too hard for us to predict, but in ways, that are likely to be unlike anything which has been seen before. It's stupid not to step back, and look at what we can do to slow down the global changes we are making.

The WSJ is backed by big industry, and no one in big industry wants to give up market share to the competition. The last thing you should trust making life or death decisions for you is a corporation. Corporations have no motivation to keep you alive. They would be happy to kill off 80% of the population of the planet if they thought they could make more profit selling to the 20% that was left.

I'm all for big business. I own and run my own small business. I was on the board of a NASDAQ traded company for 10 years. I love making money as much as the next guy. But the last thing you can do, is trust a corporation with your life. And that's exactly what you are doing if you listen to the WSJ articles about what we should do with this "life boat" that's currently keeping us all alive in a universe that would kill us in a second if not for the protection that Earth provides us.

I don't know what the right answers are, but I do know, we are taking large risks by what we are doing to the Earth, and that we should not be pretending the problem doesn't exist just because it's an inconvenient truth.

Reply to
Curt Welch

On Wed, 21 Feb 2007 16:56:57 GMT, with neither quill nor qualm, Gunner quickly quoth:

Don't normal grow lights put out UV? SAD lamps are said to be UV-limited.

-- If it weren't for jumping to conclusions, some of us wouldn't get any exercise.

Reply to
Larry Jaques

Yep - it was meant as a compliment, even though I frequently disagree with you, there is a seductive power to your arguments - but too simplistic, too black and white. (for me, at any rate.) But so saying that, there are times, after seeing the latest lunatic Middle East bombing on TV, that the "Nuke the Bastards" options seems VERY attractive....

But your arguments and views are not cynical attempts to gain an electoral advantage - I respect the sincerity of your views, if not the content. But this "lets ban incandescent bulbs" nonsense is just the politicians desperately trying to be seen doing SOMETHING, ANYTHING. its not going to cost too much, (especially their paymasters who bankroll the next election) and the right wing techno geeks will argue on science that its a GOOD IDEA. The loony treehugging left will argue its a GOOD IDEA from emotion,cause it will save the habitat of some cute cuddly endangered animal. (Don't know how, but thats irrelevant) . So the politicians have got a cheap winner. Bloody hell - I do despair of the prospects for the human race if this sort of bullshit goes on for too long...

Gunner, your good value - glad I get the chance to bullshit with you. If you were closer, would do it in person. And look over your shoulder so I could learn a bit more about machine tools from you......

Andrew VK3BFA.

Reply to
Andrew VK3BFA

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