Why are over the top Christmas lights not banned for contributing to global warming?

Answer 1

Bans are rarely the best solution.

The idea of using LED christmas lights sounds good, but actually it is important to look at total energy which includes energy of production freight etc. So it may actually use less energy to continue to use your existing lights, from last year or even older, than to go out and buy new LED lights. Many christmas lights use very little power and they are only on for relatively few hours per year. If you do buy new LED lights, make sure you pack them away carefully at the end of the season so that you can use them again next year. LED lights should last many years as they do not burn out as easily.

Driving all over town in a big SUV, burning gallons of fuel to find some LED christmas lights to save 10KWh (that is a lot for christmas lights!) is kind of stupid as you probably added several times that amount of carbon equivalent to find them!

Ever heard of using the phone to find out if the shop has any stock? Or does that not happen in the developed world anymore?

I have several strings of older bulb style lights that use about 2-3W. There is no point replacing them with LEDs that use 0.5W. As I buy new ones to add to the collection or to replace dead ones, yes I get LEDs, but to chuck the bulbs out is silly in the scheme of things. I will get a MUCH bigger impact replacing a 250W mercury security light with an 80W flouro of about the same brightness. This is what I prefer to spend my energy saving budget on, those items that get the biggest result for the least expense. (bought a bunch of secondhand street lights (High intensity Flouro) and am replacing a whole bunch of mercury fittings. This way even the energy of manufacture is limited as they have already served many years before I got them and were destined for the tip. By canabalizing some of them I get one fitting in good working order out of every 3. Costs are very low and I long ago recovered my investment in saved energy bills.

So by all means consider the total energy consumption of your lights, but banning them seems silly. Far better to ridicule, shame and harass anyone who goes way out of proportion with their lights. After all they do it in large part to entertain others or to show off. If people generally find it distasteful obscene or unacceptable to waste that much energy, the people doing it can be told and will be disinclined to do it next year if the effect they had was people walking past their place and booing, hissing and generally letting their displeasure be known. If everyone in the street has a modest low energy display and the only one energy waster is shunned, they will no doubt go with the trend next yr.

Plant a few pine trees in your yard and decorate them, much better than chopping them down freighting them halfway round the country. (plant one in a tub and bring it indoors), growing trees reduces greenhouse gases!

Answer 2

Chris O makes a good point. We could just as easily keep extravagant Christmas lighting by replacing them with LEDs which consume 80% less energy.

Unfortunately in the USA these are not common. My wife and I went to 3 stores and only found a couple of LED Christmas light sets. We got 2 boxes at Home Depot, went back a couple days later to get 1 more, and they were already sold out. About 10% of the lights being sold in the various shops were LEDs, the rest were standard. The only ones we could find were all green, all red, or all blue. Very few options.

Rather than banning "over the top" lighting (which would be hard to define), the USA should be giving rebates on LEDs so that people use more energy efficient decorative lights. We shouldn't have to go store to store trying to hunt them down.

Answer 3

Because we as a country do not believe the problems (or solutions) apply to us.

I can see a difference in my neighborhood, though.
A lot of people have replaced the "all over the house" lights with more old fashioned decorations, like wreaths, pine swags around the doors, etc. It looks really nice. Of coarse, I did that, too, so I am prejudiced.

Others put up the whole shebang. Frankly, it looks a little silly next to the quaint old fashioned look without lots of lights.

I did not put up outside lights this year because I could not find LED lights, and the ones I saw early in the season were blue.
I could not bring myself to put up regular lights when I have replaced all of the inside light bulbs with fluorescent.

I did put up a tree with regular lights, but turn it off at night when I go to bed. Next year, I will shop early for LED lights.

The rebate is a good idea. A ban? not so much. Maybe a premium paid for using x amount over your average electrical consumption?

Answer 4

This answer shows a basic misunderstanding about how those governments who believe that it is essential to reduce the emission of 'greenhouse gases' like carbon dioxide and methane are operating. The EEC are saying that it is up to individuals to decide in what ways they wish to do this and are using pricing mechanisms. The power company from which you buy your electricity has to use non polluting sources or purchase carbon offsets from an organisation which has them to sell. So you can effectively choose whether have Christmas Lights or use a little less gas. With gas in the UK now costing circa $7 a US gallon, can you imagine the potential resentment against those countries that are not taking any action and relying on others.

Answer 5

I agree - there should be a limit. What's the point of all year us all saving energy and then having a big splurg just because it's Christmas! That's like instead of saving the energy all year, we're just "saving it up" for Christmas. A few lights is fine, we've got to have some Christmas spirit and festivity but some houses go WAY over the top.

Answer 6

Chris O is right on! Buy LED Christmas lights, they hardly use any electricity at all!

Besides, we can do a lot to protect the environment without having to sacrifice very much in terms of our standard of living. that's one of the biggest fears I hear from GW deniers is that we'll have to go live in caves or something, and it's absolutely false!

Answer 7

LED lights use a fraction of the power of what would be called 'old' style Christmas lights. I don't know about the US but they are standard here. You get an energy rebate when you buy them, and most stores don't sell the old lights anymore.

Answer 8

Because that is such a miniscule problem compared to all the cities that use severely energy depleting lights every day of the year, not just around the holidays. although they should have "energystar" christmas lights and decorations.

Answer 9

Have you ever held a string of indoor lights in your hand? There's no real heat emitted. The old glass outdoor lights are scarcely seen anymore.

Answer 10

Why not just make Christmas illegal? After all, look how much carbon is generated just by traveling during the holidays.