Andrew is a post-doctoral researcher in North Carolina focused on population and conservation genetics in hydrothermal vent communities.
Political junkies like myself know that Republicans are expected to regain the House of Representatives following elections this November. The Democrats’ odds of keeping the Senate improved with the primary victory of corrupt Christine O’Donnell last week, but there is still a chance that the Republicans will retake the Senate. This isn’t surprising- the opposition party often gains seats in a midterm election. How will this takeover effect environmental policy in this country? It’s impossible to say for sure, but Politico has some predictions.
I don’t much care for Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), but she has done an admirable job of making the Capitol a greener place. From the Politico article:
“House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s imprint is everywhere: energy-efficient light bulbs, healthful, organic foods in cafeterias, aggressive recycling and, of course, a complete ban on smoking”
If Republicans win control of the House by gaining at least 39 seats, John Boehner (R-OH) would be Speaker. Boehner considers Pelosi’s reforms to be a waste of money, and he laughed when the House cafeteria starting carrying foods that he hadn’t heard of before. Charming.
We can also look to conservative opinion leaders to see how Republicans would govern. The influential blog “Red State” has started a campaign to “Save the Light Bulb“. For those of you who are confused, they are talking about saving the incandescent bulb from crazy environmentalists who are promoting more energy-efficient fluorescent bulbs. This movement is far from widespread (the Facebook fan page has 8 fans, despite a stated goal of one million), but it has resulted in some press coverage.
In the end, I’m not sure how much of a difference a Republican controlled house will make, since the Democrats couldn’t pass a meaningful climate change bill when they ran things. On the other hand… save the light bulb? Seriously? How are the Democrats losing to people who are against energy efficiency?
~WhySharksMatter
Why should anyone give a flying fuck what religion she’s dabbled in?
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I personally am more concerned by her blatant corruption, but “witch” ranks just above “atheist” to most social conservatives (i.e. her supporters).
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So what? You want to stoop to their level? Why not just say she’s a secret Muslim?
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I wasn’t stooping to anyone’s level, I was reminding people of who O’Donnell is via mentioning a recent controversy in the news.
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Bullshit, you thought “witch-craft dabbling” was funny and wanted to take a cheap shot.
How is that any different than saying “murderous born-again Christian Jeffery Dahmer”?
You want to raise the discourse of politics above “save our light bulbs” why don’t we start with not demonizing public figures with trivial crap that has no bearing on governance?
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The offending passage has been removed because it distracts from the larger point. Apologies to anyone who it bothered.
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“How are the Democrats losing to people who are against energy efficiency?”
The same way they lost Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat to a former underwear model. That’s our two-party system: batshit-insane Republicans versus abysmally stupid Democrats. Take your pick.
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And why do incandescent lightbulbs matter at all? I can understand the “save Christmas” sort of reactionary campaigns to progressivism, since Christmas has some symbolic value. What does an incandescent bulb symbolize? Willful and futile inefficiency?
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Apparently they want to protect an “American Invention”. I guess they never learned that the flourescent bulb was also invented by an American – Peter Cooper Hewitt.
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They also never learned that Edison didn’t invent the incandescent bulb: He bought the patent from Woodward and Evans, a pair of Canadians.
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Personally, I don’t see the point in having ORGANIC cafetria food. First off, why do these elected officials need cafeteria food (and how many actually eat there)? They should (and probably do) bring lunches…the cafeteria is probably used by their staff.
Just to push the envelope a little, the energey efficient flourescnet bulbs may be more energy savy, however, when these bulbs do end up dying, what happens to them? Chances are most people will trash them, sending them to landfills, where they will break and realese mercury into the ecosystem. Granted it’s a minimal amount of mercury in each bulb, but there are A LOT of bulbs out there…
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LED’s will do the trick in just a few years, I’ll bet.
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See my response to the mercury question here. The 10 word summery: Incandescent bulbs still produce more mercury than compact fluorescent lights.
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Geez, remind me never to get on SFriedScientist’s bad side. Eep.
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Whiskey is for fightin’ and bloggin’
Damn, now that shanty is running through my head.
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I was by no mean saying not to use compact flourescents. Merely just bringing up another view point to look at, and see where it would take the thread. Apparently, it ended up creating a totally new thread.
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[...] over at Southern Fried Science got political on our asses by exposing the Republican “Save the Light Bulb” movement. Andrew then got into the science of incandescent and fluorescent bulbs and [...]
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