The oberbulbenfuhrer issued a policy this week that will see our old fashioned "Edison" type light globes disappearing from the supermarket shelves over the next few years. The crowd over at Tim Blair have been giving Turnbull a bit of a walloping over this issue.
I would love to see a graph showing the market share of incandescent light bulbs vs the new flourescent bulbs over say the last 10 years. I know that the new bulbs have been around at least that long, as Dad was buying them when they cost about $25. They are now so cheap that they are being given away by various groups in shopping centres. We visit a number of shopping centres, and we have loaded up with 5 packs of free bulbs at three of them - more than enough for all the light fittings in our shoe box. Each pack also came with a water saving showerhead. I haven't worked out what to do with the three spare showerheads (none of them will fit on our 1930's era plumbing without paying a plumber a few hundred dollars to go to town on the pipes).
The way I see it, if people really believe that global warming is a problem, then they'll change their behaviour to make that problem go away. One change would be to drive fewer miles, or buy a radically more fuel efficient vehicle (like a scooter). Another would be to swap out most, if not all, of their light bulbs with the new fluoro ones. I dare say most wouldn't bother with the light bulb in the linen closet that only gets switched on for a minute a week, but certainly swapping out those in well used rooms, like the lounge room, makes sense - if you can bear the light that they produce.
Hence my desire to see a graph of market share. Forget about the long tube fluoro lights - I want to see a head to head comparison between the types of bulbs that screw into either a bayonet or Edison type socket.
15 years ago, incandescent would have had 99% of the market. What have they got now? 90%? 80%? 50%? 20%? Have we passed a tipping point, like we did with videos/DVD's a few years ago, and incandescent sales are plummeting like a duck full of number 10 shot? Or are people still shelling out for what they know?
I had a look in my supermarket this week and noticed that as far as shelf space goes, the different bulbs are holding at about 50/50, but that doesn't necessarily tell you anything about sales or market share. By value, fluro's might have a higher share as they cost more, but I am interested in sales volumes - how many units of each have sold each quarter?
If incandescent bulbs now only make up 20% of sales by volume, then getting rid of them entirely is no big deal. The government has made a pretty simple policy change that really just speeds up the inevitable.
However, if they make up 80% or more of sales by volume, then it means that the general public couldn't give a bugger, and deep down they really don't believe or don't care much about global warming.
So to me, light bulb market share is an interesting indicator of human behaviour in response to global warming. Unfortunately, banning incandescent light bulbs gets rid of a potentially useful set of statistics that could be used to track perceptions and behaviour.
Idiots.
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