Posts by Angus Robertson
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Isn't it more likely that manufacturers will greatly appreciate the advance signal provided by regulatory certainty, and duly plan to increase CFL production? It's not like China is short of capacity.
Yes reckon you are right, but production was growing at 30% each year so perhaps the regulatory approach is a excellent solution thats only flaw is the absence of an actual problem.
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Russell,
I really do read this stuff, a more than tripling of production constitutes a market success:
Between 2001 and 2006, production of compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) in China-which accounts for roughly 85 percent of global output-tripled from 750 million to 2.4 billion units.
And since (as you so kindly highlight) this occurs before even the first government ban:
In 2007, Australia became the first country to ban the sale of incandescent bulbs, and sales there will be phased out entirely by 2009.
Maybe
Because although everywhere else in the world is adopting efficiency standards in this area, and it's driving the new market in CFL bulbs, our government shouldn't do it because...
...the old market that existed prior to government intervention was tripling every 5 years and we don't want to screw that up.
What those laws will do will increase the price of CFLs by mandating demand uptake in the EU, Japan, Nth America and Aussie; whilst increasing prices might slow uptake in Asia, Africa, Latin America and NZ. Its 50:50 as to if it is even good for the planet.
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The light bulb and home water systems minimum standards were a response to climate change, and there is at least some kind of popular mandate for measures to address climate change.
Yes, the measures were a small and meaningless response to climate change.
They were also complementary to minimum standards* in other consumer products, there because market failure means that people choose products that impose significant externalities, and don't deliver to people's stated expectations. Markets can fail to deliver products adequately, despite demand, because of barriers to access. Regulation can, when used effectively, remove those barriers to access.
CFL sales were increasing very rapidly, in fact CFLs are one of the great product successes of the past decade. They are available nationwide with no barrier to access apart from purchase price (which this never addressed). There was no market failure and the legislation lowered no barriers.
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(Which neatly wraps back onto an earlier part of the thread: why doesn't Labour fight its corner? Why don't they advocate for their beliefs? Why are they so bloody timid? Are they that embarassed about their views? Are they that scared of saying anything?)
Do they have any beliefs? Is there any difference between the 2 major parties? Will, 6 or 9 years from now, there be a copy + paste of this thread over on Kiwiblog?
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You can make the same argument about any form of consumer regulation: unsafe food, unsafe cars, products that do not work as advertised, rip-off loans. And the answer is that not everyone does serious due-dilligence whenever they buy a lightbulb (or a car, or a happy meal, or a heater), and that in the absence of regulation some will inevitably be ripped-off.
Assuming both CFLs and incandescent to be safe for usage in the home, the only relevent factors are price and lifetime costs. That choice is quite simple.
And to turn your argument back on you, if its a choice you think no sane person would ever make anyway, why are you so upset to lose it?
This is about respect, does the government respect our ability to make simple decisions and does the government earn our respect by making complex decisions?
The government exists to perform tasks of importance and make hard decisions. There are quite a few problems existant that are more complex than choosing lightbulbs - like the appropriate national debt, balance of payments, youth suicide, homelessness, waiting lists, economic growth, Afghanistan, unemployment, Fiji, immigration, over burdened prisons or global warming - to which I'd like to see the government focus some energy.
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Setting energy efficiency standards for lightbulbs isn't the nanny state, or a "sideshow": it's a practical step with a manifest economic benefit. The sideshow wasn't the policy; it was the consequent wave of pseudo-scientific alarmism and confused appeals to liberty that greeted it. The people crusading for their light-bulb liberty were, in effect, declaring their wish for the government to spend more tax dollars on one or two new electric power stations.
Yes, the lightbulbs are a good choice to make. Yes, they will save power stations being built. In fact the benefits of curly bulbs are so manifest it would take an idiot (or a conspiracy theorist) not to appreciate them. Today, more and more people do buy the curly bulbs. People do this by thinking for themselves and seeing the benefits, its almost like NZers are not piss ignorant idiots.
What does it say about a government that thinks it needs to take such an easy choice out of the hands of ordinary New Zealanders? Do they think we are stupid?
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The record in the context of the array governments that proceeded them since 1975 is was pretty fucking impressive on many fronts including 9 years of economic growth.
Actually it was 8 and 3/4 years of economic growth, followed by 3 months of economic collapse. But apologising for being in government when a global financial crisis hits would appear trite.
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American politicians acting bi-partisanly invaded Afghanistan and Iraq and handed $trillions to uber-wealthy bankers. Bi-partisanship might be overrated?
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The referees are a very different story indeed.
The scorekeepers aren't that crash hot either.
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And who is going to pay for this? Well, we are aren’t we? Just as we are going to be paying for the 2011 Rugby World Cup long after the event. (Anybody yet heard how Eden Park will be filled and pay its way when the tumult and the shouts of “awww ref” have died?)
Stick a big tent over the top and fill it with "a gallery of contemporary art from around the Pacific rim, with special spaces for Maori, Pacific and New Zealand artists of whatever cultural background, would be a real earner." Call it the Millennium and a little bit Dome.