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50W is a bit too much for any camera, but you should be there if you factor in the necessary: recording equipment, monitors, capture cards/switching gear and night-time illumination - so it's a fair point anyway.

I though I had recently read that the temperature on Mars was increasing too?

It would also seem to be the "weigh the facts as we want them" school of graphs.

http://cosmicrays.oulu.fi/

Funny, this one gives the average as greater then the mean in the first graph.
Must be the way the scales are drawn....always make the scale look extreme by skewing the timebase.

In a tongue-in-cheek examination of carbon reduction I offer a fourth law of thermodynamics. 'The rate of change of energy forms is directly proportional to the rate of change of economic growth.' Changes in energy forms creates byproducts, CO2 being of particular interest.

If I had large sums of money and was concerned about carbon emissions I could leave the money on deposit and live a frugal life. However, the bank would loan the money to others and could help fund coal-fired power stations in China.

I could establish a wind turbine company. Then I would need staff who would need salaries to enjoy holidays, buy cars and computers and heat their homes. The offices would need computers, heating, cooling and lighting. Staff would need cars to visit customers. And that is before a carbon audit could be carried out on manufacturing and installation. Studies suggest wind turbines have outputs far below their predicted figures: their uptake is dependent on subsidies.

I could plant forests but they are not clean engineering systems with quantifiable inputs and outputs. Would large forests upset the ecosystem in unexpected ways? What happens to a tree at the end of its life? When leaves and timber rot they create methane, a greenhouse gas that is 20 times more virulent than CO2. If I funded large forests in Indonesia how could I be sure they would be planted, or would not be burnt down in the future?

I could buy a year's output of Range Rovers and lock them in a warehouse. But for how long? Building a car generates more CO2 than its lifetime of burning fuel.

The only way to reduce carbon emissions is to destroy money. Even that is not problem-free — burning or landfill? No government is likely to pursue negative growth so carbon emissions are unlikely to decrease.

Because the climate change debate is so complex, it is unlikely any workable energy strategy will emerge that would remain valid, even for a few years. The best we can do is bumble on. Something will come along and save us — with a bit of luck. I hope I will be around to see it.

Martin Francis, Porthmadog, North Wales

What really gets up my green friend's nostrils is them patio heaters springing up everywhere in the back of pubs. I expect we'll see even more now the smokers have been kicked outside.

Yep. This was foreseen as a consequence of the ban. My 3 locals have bought several patio heaters and they're on in the evening and some colder lunchtimes. They either do that or lose the trade!

This might interest you.

Maybe I imagined it; it was just a filiment of my imagination.

Oh I see... everyone is now using those energy saving bulbs which cost seven quid each. You know the type - the bulb says 60 watt equivalent but it still looks more like 10.

Perhaps the phrase 'Jumping on the Climate Change Bandwagon' would be closer to the mark..?

Still......Be assured that what-ever fuel that YOU don't burn....
WILL be burned by the CHINESE and INDIAN ecconomies.......in order to make bigger profits. (Often for western based Companies).

Ah compact florescent lamps are ok. Not so easy to spell, but...

(Except the small American ones which set fire to themselves but then American electrical equipment isn't always such good quality)

They don't seem to like being turned on and off too often though...?

One thing they don't seem to mention about filament lamps is what the "waste" energy is... It's pretty much all heat.

So you have to ask yourself is heat a waste?
In a well insulated house if you save 100 watts from the light bulbs then your heating system puts out about 100 watts extra...

However in external lighting (say, a set of traffic lights with halogen bulbs) the heat generated isn't needed.

Talking of fluorescent lamps; them big tubular ones are more economical than the incandescent type but they need energy to get started. There's a surge at switch on so, in short, unless you are going to leave them switched off for a long time it's better just to leave them on.

Seems like there always a down for every up in life

There was a some discussion in a previous thread here, it may or may not interest you

I'd like to talk about why it is that there are millions of birds which must die at some point and yet you don't see them littering our streets and gardens?