Moron Bad Science

Further to my blast about low-energy bulbs and the dodgy science that seems to trot alongside them....

Last week I found myself in a modern office building, all glass and stainless steel. Boarding the lift for a quick whizz to Floor 10, I spotted the following notice:

This lift has been fitted with an experimental LED lighting system. As these lights are more energy efficient, they will help us to reduce our carbon emissions within the building.

NO. THEY WON'T! Whatever benefits they may have (less heat in the lift, for one!) the one thing they won't affect in the slightest is the amount of carbon released in the building.

Poor science teaching? Lazy journalism? Sinister indoctrination? Whatever is to blame, I'm willing to bet it won't be long before there are people going round B&Q gingerly picking up light bulbs and sniffing them to see if they can detect all that deadly carbon seeping out.

Nurse!

Life

My wife and I have spent the last couple of days at the bedside of a friend, as she trod the pathway toward the exit from this life.

Tonight, the door opened and, at the pitifully young age of 48, she stepped through.

Not much to say, except:

(a) Hug those you hold dear
(b) Melignant Melanoma is a complete and evil bastard
(c) Please support Cancer Research
(d) Wear sunscreen

Bad science, crap copy

What is it about the Green / Climate Change / We're all Doomed issue that makes it ok to tout silly claims that don't stand up?

My gander was goosed today by an advert on the side of a bus. It's pushing the benefits of low-energy light bulbs
and seeks to make its point with the statement:

If every UK household installed just one extra energy saving light bulb in their house, the CO2 saved would be equivalent to taking 93,000 cars off the UK's roads.

OK. Where to begin. What's worse, the rubbish copywriting, or the dodgy science? Well, how about we start with the copy.

If every UK household really did install one extra energy saving light bulb, that would have the effect of putting around 24.5 million additional bulbs into use. I guess they really mean that it would be a good thing if every UK household replaced an existing bulb with an energy saving one, but that's not what they've written!

And the claim itself?

Well, it all depends, doesn't it..... Those 93,000 cars. Would they be ones with little engines or the Gas Guzzlers they keep encouraging us to hate? What if they are small-engined cars that spend all day, every day, doing stop/start journeys, not fully warmed up? Or perhaps they are the modern Gas Guzzlers with some of the cleanest engines around, running efficiently in the motorway cruise for 200 miles at a time? Maybe they are the old cars that the Government wants us to scrap. You know, the ones made before manufacturers focused on the recylclability of materials used in construction? The ones that'll be really dirty to dispose of?

And talking of dirty disposal, what about this:

If every household in the UK threw out one dead low-energy light bulb, there'd be 980kg of mercury in various landfills.

I don't make any great claims for accuracy in this statement, but I suggest that it holds up at least as well as the one on the side of the bus! There is, after all, about 4mg of Mercury in your average low-energy (compact fluorescent) light bulb.


Bad science and Environmental concern. They don't have to go hand-in-hand....do they?

The Court of Public Opinion

Don't things move rapidly in today's world of lightweight politics?

Can it really be just over 2 months since Harriet Harman made her stunningly vacuous remarks about "The Court of Public Opinion", as she sought to hitch an easy ride to popularity aboard the runaway train of Sir Fred Goodwin's grandiose pension pot?

That particular court seems to have gone a bit quiet of late. A shame, as I'm sure its jurors would have something to say on the matter of MPs' expenses.

"Members of the jury, I put it to you that .... oh no, I beg your pardon, I was forgetting that you only convene when someone thinks there's a cheap headline in it. Please retire and don't consider your verdict."

Are Friends Electric?

Encouraging news recently, of fresh efforts to breathe life into the Electric Car industry. Gordon Brown has made mention of incentives to be included in the forthcoming Budget (though, unsurprisingly, there was only sketchy detail available behind the headline...) and London Mayor Boris Johnson has said he's keen to see London continue to blaze the electric-vehicle trail. Both men want to see wider networks of charging points (though, personally, I suspect Brown's enthusiasm will wane when he realises that a charging point is not a place at which the motorist queues to be relieved of cash!) and grants to boost British manufacturing.

I'm delighted that the concept is being given fresh impetus. I've been driving an electric vehicle for my daily commute for the last 6 years and I love it. I've probably got one of the UK's higher electric mileages under my belt and I'm a firm convert.

BUT. (You could sense there was a "but" coming, couldn't you?)

Government has serious Form when it comes to transport initiatives and the wise will view the latest plans with caution. There've been previous attempts to encourage "greener" road travel, such as the "Convert to LPG" scheme in 2003. This was a great idea: switch your vehicle to LPG, with the help of a generous grant, and enjoy the delights of this clean fuel at roughly half the price of petrol. Lovely! Only lots of people went for it and (a) the grant fund ran out; and (b) the government had second thoughts about the preferential tax status afforded to LPG, and up went the price.

The same idea of a system of grants was put in place to encourage purchase of the first wave of electric vehicles. Same thing happened: people took up the offer, the Treasury took fright and the grants largely dried up.

I hope it'll be different this time, but I fear more of the same. Short-term thinking gets them all excited about the headline-grabbing possibilities of grants and schemes, but the long-term funding is another matter.

Then there's the ideology problem. Plenty of UK Local Authorities are fundamentally opposed to the Car. Will they embrace the call for a multitude of easy-to-use on-street recharging points, or will they see them as encouraging private car use and hindering the march toward the holy grail of Modal Shift towards public transport? The City of London was one of the first to encourage electric vehicles, back in 2003, granting free use of their car parks and meter bays. But last year, guess what? They decided that this was encouraging people to bring electric vehicles into the City, which wasn't really what they had in mind. So the parking benefits have been withdrawn.

Hats off to Westminster Council, who have stuck to their guns on this issue, and continue to offer free and discounted parking, together with an extensive (and extending) network of charging points.

Enough of the politics for now. What about the experience and technology of Driving Electric? More on that in our next, thrilling instalment!

Biscuits! And not a crumb to eat.

Here's a picture of another of my favourite workplacesThis structure was never going to win any awards for architectural endeavour, but there are loads of bright, artistic types, beavering away inside. This is where I go to record words of wisdom about Art, for audio guides to museums and art galleries. It's a job I love doing, produced by some of the nicest people you could ever hope to work with.

But there's one injustice, niggling away at me.

This crumbling edifice has a glorious past. Once upon a time, it was the mighty Peak Freans Biscuit Factory. For decades, the (custard) cream of British biscuit-making talent slaved away here, making and despatching the company's vast repertoire of biccies to Britain, the Empire and the World. Now, anyone who knows me knows I cannot resist a biscuit. So, what a cruel twist of fate it is that I, of all people, should end up working in a biscuit factory when all traces of the blithering biscuits have gone!

Ain't life cruel, sometimes?

Writer's Blockade

A bit quiet on the blogging front lately. Well, y'see, there's been a little local difficulty...

Every time I vacate The Seat of Power, even for a few seconds, an occupying force moves in. Fellow "cat people" will understand that one of the methods employed by our feline associates to keep their human assistants on the hop is the random changing of the favourite resting spot. That hairy cushion, from which the cat has been inseparable for weeks, suddenly becomes So Yesterday and there's a new roost to rule. And right now, The Chair, is where it's at, baby!

I've had to resort to low cunning: wait 'til he's downstairs, eating, or nipping out to answer a call of nature, then bag my place on the chair. It works, of course, but within moments, he's back. He can't physically dislodge me from the seat, but there are other ways: a quick walk on the asdkfldfn/// keyboard, a long, langurous stretch in front of the monitor, head buffing the mouse-hand and, if all else fails, parking up on the desktop, delivering a long, baleful stare. He may not have the power of speech as we understand it, but the message couldn't be clearer.