Ideas for a greener future

Well, at least the metaphorical kind. Maharashtra State and Osram India are in a collaboration to distribute CFL lamps free of charge to replace the ubiquitous tungsten bulbs. Very nice to read such news when you begin the day.

This achieves a three-fold advantage: one, the state will have to provide less electricity to the households (it's already under a crunch). Hopefully the load-shedding will reduce.

Two, the consumers pay less electricity bills.

Third and most important: as a result of using lesser electricity, we're reducing emissions that add to the pollution and global warming. Studies show that the tungsten bulbs convert only 10% of energy into electricity, the rest is converted to heat. This means all the coal that is burnt to produce electricity is actually lost when it's utilised. A CFL, on the other hand, uses 80% less electricity than the bulb and lasts 15 years longer. Now why wouldn't you migrate to CFLs?

PS: Interestingly, this topic came up recently at the KVM Forum 2007 while discussing several things, and Chris Wright mentioned that the US air was seeing pollution from some gases which were banned over 30 years ago. Research showed the gases came from air blown over the Pacific ocean. That's really scary. You not only have to withstand pollution around you, but you also have to bear the results of the bad stuff people half way across the globe have done.

Update: Samim Rizvi is running Mumbai - Bangalore (a distance of 1100 kms) to spread awareness on the issue of climate change.