We have some rich and famous politicians and movie stars that get both attention and flack when they do things like try to lower their carbon footprint by driving an expensive hybrid card, or switching the lights in their mansion to fluorescents.
On the one hand, somebody had to be the first users of the car, but on the other the high price tells you that a lot more resources went into making it than five or so other cars.
And if the mansion’s light bill excedes that of a dozen of it’s neighbors, maybe old bulbs aren’t the casue of a big carbon footprint as much as just owning a mansion.
So, do these people deserve credit or raised eyebrows?
Do they help the green cause or hurt it?
Both, the industry of personality they create around their cause celebre is extremely wasteful, but it does get the message out.
BTW Flourescents are disgusting creatures. They have mercury in them. Go LED, they don’t flicker and cause eyestrain, you can use them with a dimmer switch, they use less power per lumen than a flourescent, and last for more than a decade on average.
I’d say Ed Begley Jr. walks the walk the best. He lives in a small house, which he has turned into a demo-/test-bed for green innovations and conservation techniques.
But, in general, are they somehow worse than rich people who try to stop poverty, etc.? Wouldn’t those celebrities make more of an impact if they just gave ALL of their money to charity and instead lived in a trailer?
Hmm, might you be referring to Sen. John Edwards?
I’ll have you know that he’s announced that he drives a hybrid SUV and that his campaign’s striving to be carbon-neutral through purchase of “carbon offsets”.
No doubt he can afford to buy lots and lots of offsets to make up for his giganto-estate.
So yeah, he’s as green as green can be, and let us cease this nasty insinuation.
This is such a silly meme right now. Yes, fluorescents contain mercury. Yes, older ones flickered. But the mercury in fluorescents is a pittance compared to the mercury released by the coal plants in providing the power for those incandescents. My new CFs flicker not in the least, and cause eyestrain not in the least. I love them.
And, yes, LEDs are a more promising technology. But they’re extremely expensive right now (as CFs were several years ago). In a decade or so, LEDs will be great replacements. Right now, cost-benefit ratio is hard to justify when CFs are so relatively cheap both to buy and operate.
I think it’s not just about how much of their own money they’re willing to give away, and it’s not just about how much energy they use. The thing that I don’t like is when they ask others to do things that they are not willing to do. For example, if a rich celebrity wants to help the poor by raising taxes for the middle class, but not for themselves, then I have a problem. If a celebrity thinks that buying carbon offsets is sufficient to make up for excessive energy use, then they shouldn’t be telling anyone else to cut back on consumption either, but to buy offsets instead.
I admire Ed Begley for living a truly green lifestyle.
When you have a list of all those dozens of celebrities who advocated middle-class tax increases with no corresponding upper-class tax increase, lemme know.
I think celebrities are like most rich (really rich) folks…they avoid taxes the old-fashioned way, though loopholes and tax shelters. 
But I wasn’t using that example to rip on anyone in particular…it was just an example of what I would find to be hypocritical. I really don’t follow celebrity causes close enough to know who advocates what, to be honest.
This reasoning is really dubious. Would you like to try to back it up?
Ugh, another “are they helping the cause” question…
LEDs are cheaper in the long term. Over a year the amount you will save on your electric bill will pay for them, and then you won’t replace them for another nine more. The $ 10-15 a piece is worth it. Besides the more people that buy them the cheaper they will get. It’s not a stupid meme at all.
The Mercury is negligible individually but not in aggregate when they are thrown into landfills with other products containing mercury.
If someone really cares about the environment, they need to see what they can do–personally. Switching to those funny-looking lightbulbs, checking into commuting via mass transit, etc. Even those of us who don’t want to live in a yurt & raise all our own food can do our bit. (In fact, tearing down my house to put up a yurt & plant a garden would definitely irritate my landlady.)
If I wanted to obsess about the lifestyles of the rich & famous, I’d watch E!
I’ll “judge” entertainers on how well they entertain me. And I’ll judge politicians on their policies–many of which have definite environmental impact.
Yes, Al Gore lives in a mansion. But I think he’s done far more for the environment than the idiot who was appointed President in his stead.
That isn’t saying much. I haven’t seen “An Inconvenient Truth” because I just can’t take the ecological footprint of his cherry picker seriously.
I’m all for LEDs over fluorescent bulbs. One problem that needs to be accommodated, though, is the failure rate of LEDs in high temperatures. This poses a problem to LEDs that reside in recessed fixtures, etc.
And there’s the price, too. But as you mentioned, as the market becomes more saturated with LEDs, and as technology continues to advance, prices should drop significantly.
I agree. I think that any feasible migration towards fluorescent bulbs requires an active effort on the government’s side (or even private contractors - who cares) to provide some kind of “pickup” service for used bulbs. If people have to go out of their way to dispose of these bulbs, they’re going to be more likely to just dump them in their trash.
LilShieste
How is this any different than the idea that if you support the war you should go fight in it? Anyone should be able to advocate any idea without living up to the ideal of that idea, right?
(wow, I said idea a lot)
Agreed.
Agreed.
Seriously, though, I think guppy hit the nail on the head. If someone is advocating “reducing your carbon footprint”, they are not necessarily advocating “eliminating your carbon footprint.” In the same way that someone who is saying “you should support this war” is not necessarily saying “you should join the army and fight in this war.”
LilShieste
But the aggregate amount is still less than running an incandescent on coal power (the dominant form of power generation). If every single incandescent is switched for a CFL, the amount of mercury being released into the environment will actually decrease.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:CFL_bulb_mercury_use_environment.svg
You’re not wrong–LEDs are a great technology. I can’t wait for them to fall in price a bit. But the meme that “LEDs are better than CFLs, so don’t buy CFLs” too often is used as an excuse for the real-life action of “LEDs are better than CFLs … so I’ll stay away from CFLs … and stay with my incandescents until LEDs come around…”
Just because LEDs are better doesn’t mean that CFLs are not a good intermediate step. Just as buying a small, cheap, 35-40-mpg car is a good intermediate step for those who can’t afford an expensive 50-60-mpg hybrid.
In the long run LED’s are cheaper then standard (IC) bulbs, but CF lights are on par with LED’s for energy per watt and cost a lot less initially. Yes in labs they can make LED’s slightly more efficient then CF’s but I don’t think those are the consumer variety (yet). This is expected to change as LED’s become better and cheaper.
I don’t know if manufacture of LED’s is ‘green’.
FWIW Al Gore has three homes but all evidence suggests he lives a “carbon-neutral life style.” He buys green energy for his homes (wind/methane) and installed solar panels and did retrofits to his home so they wouldn’t consume as much energy.
If anyone is nasty here it is you. I was unaware of John Edward’s problems. I vote Green (last time I voted was for Ralph Nader). The main parties don’t interest me at all.
In Jackmannii’s defense, I don’t think you can blame him for reading your OP in a certain “tone”. There have been several threads similar to this one in which the OP has either flat out condemned people like Edwards and Gore, or at least hinted at an inherent contradiction in their viewpoints.
LilShieste