Regarding the last post here "New study on CFL UV Radiation", an interesting South African article putting it in a greater perspective.
As the article says, South Africa, and indeed all the other BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China) have recently announced incandescent light bulb bans or "phase-outs", as have many smaller developing countries.
The United Nations (UNEP) switchover policy supported by the World Bank and other big sponsors is playing a part in this, a policy pushed at the recent RIO environmental summit also by General Secretary Ban-Ki Moon himself... I will do a post on this later.
The UNEP en.lighten initiative itself, and how Philips and Osram benefit from offloading otherwise unwanted bulbs, has been covered in an earlier post "Philips, Osram, the UN and the World Bank: How we will en.lighten the World in 2012".
The author Ivo Vegter, as the blurb says, is no stranger to controversy - but hardly controversial what he says here - at least for supporters of this blog!
Embedded Daily Maverick article source here.
His own website: ivo.co.za
Notice the book coming out in September... might rustle a few feathers alright!
My book, which has kept be very occupied in recent months, is at the printers. In September 2012, Zebra Press, an imprint of Random House Struik, will inflict upon an unsuspecting world “Extreme Environment”.
It documents how environmental exaggeration harms emerging economies like South Africa, and I expect it will result in a few entertaining debates...
7 comments:
Great article! Glad to see more and more voices of reason popping up all over the globe.
Thanks Halogenica - another article, this time from Hong Kong, coming up!
Yes, nice to see more worldwide intelligent critical thinking amid all the hype sponsored by Government agencies, manufacturers and environmental organizations, hype continually swallowed whole by mainstream media.
For those who have not seen it, there happens to be a good extensive new post on Greenwashing Lamps about the historical collaborative cartel context of how we got here...
Good article by the writer Ivo Vegter. His site has more, if you saw it.
You also make good points in comment about how government industry and enviro organizations work together.
But your alliteration 'about the historical collaborative cartel context of how we got here'.... don't all cartels collaborate ?! ;)
Thanks Fran
Yes it says Ivo has a new book coming out in September "“Extreme Environment”... documenting how environmental exaggeration harms emerging economies like South Africa...
Might rustle a few feathers alright.
Should have put a mention of it, will do that now.
RE "collaborative cartels", true enough... one does get carried away with the old alliteration sometimes (cough!)
Government has no place telling people how they can use their electricity if what they use is not dangerous
Who has an update on whether incandescent bulbs are actually outlawed in SA or will officially be? Anything credible?
Helmut,
yes on checking online, as you probably did yourself, can't see any updates about it - several articles from 2011 saying "it will happen within the next 5 years"
eg IOL News Dec 8 2011
... but seemingly has not happened
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