Live a moral life
On Friday we finally completed on our new house. I am still left believing the house buying and selling process leaves alot to be desired - but that’s another story!
Now I’m not one of those environmental fundamentalists, far from it, however one of the first things I did, was to replace all of the oridinary bulbs with energy saving ones. I actually want to see if having a house full of them can keep your electricty bill down, or whether it’s just a load of hot air.
I have done this solely out of personal choice. I do not feel compelled to, and certainly don’t think it will help the environment given the latest population growth figures that have come out for India, a country where I suspect many families don’t even have electricity, let alone worry about whether their bulbs are environmentally friendly or not.
Where I think the Government are getting things wrong is by making out that there is some moral imperative for certain decisions to be made. Hell we are already more environmentally friendly than the family next to us with three children. The very fact that they have three children mean they have a much larger impact on the environment than we do, but again, that is personal choice, and I would not dream of inflicting my morals on someone else.
It is exactly the same with the free range chicken debate which has recently come to the fore. We actually do our best to buy freee range chickens, however I feel it wholly unacceptable for anyone to say it is immoral for people to buy non free range chickens. If some people feel so strongly perhaps they will pay the difference in price to people like my Nana where price is often the primary factor in making food purchase decisions.
More recently we have had a Government Minister saying it’s immoral for us to buy bottled drinking water. I got that agitated, I even contributed to the debate on Radio 5. Now I don’t buy bottled water mainly because I think its a rip off. Mind you - I hardly ever drink water anyway. I remember going for a fitness test, and the instructor asked me when was the last time I had a glass of water. He was expecting me to say something like 10:00am. I think I said about 1999.
I for one am getting sick to the back teeth of people moralising about my life. Don’t smoke, don’t drink bottled water, don’t use plastic bags, don’t use your car, don’t fly abroad - it’s all morally wrong. All this from a Government where there appears to be a strong coorelation between donating to the Labour party, and gaining a seat in the legislature. Hardly the best people to be telling me how to live a moral life I would suggest.
Jonathan Sheppard
Filed under: morals
“one of the first things I did, was to replace all of the oridinary bulbs with energy saving ones. I actually want to see if having a house full of them can keep your electricty bill down”
Well, duh.
Really? Who says they save you money? I haven’t seen any proof? Do you have proof from your own home.
Secondly - given that some of the newer bulbs made to fit different light fitments cost up to 10 times the price of a so called none energy saving bulb, then the time it will take to repay the original outlay is all important.
I assume your “well duh” comment means you have all these statistics to hand?
And what about the mercury that is in these bulbs. I trust you are aware of the correct procedure for disposing of what is classed as hazardouse material - which includes leaving a room for over 15 minutes if you happen to break one.
We are all told to compost - yet there is quite a strong case that suggests composting actually increases the amount of greenhouse gases during decomposition of material. So some of these things aren’t so “well duh” as you think.