Carbon sucker

[Dr H]

So was the major problem really addressed here?
Or was changing all the lightbulbs just a "feel good" home activity, with very limited impact?

Beware the "quick fix".

I agree with your assessment that the short video was more of an advertisement than anything really informative.

However, I don't think anyone ever promised that we would solve global warming by changing our lightbulbs.  It was just one small step we could all take immediately.  Some people have done the math to make sure it made sense.

Well, I did the math -- wrote a paper on it, in fact -- and it didn't make sense.  Quite the opposite:  as incandescents were phased out, most of the light "bulb" supply in the US shifted from domestic production to China.  The Chinese were more than happy to supply our sudden demand for CFLs, by opening more factories and increasing production -- at one point they were building an average a one new coal-fired power plant per week to support the manufacturing boom.  
Too bad we share the same atmosphere as China.

Speaking of China, just came across this:

https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/18/1...arch-shows

That said, I agree that no one sane actually claimed that changing our lightbulbs would solve global warming.  But the plan was aggressively marketed; and manufacturers hugely over-hyped the amount of energy savings CFLs would bring.  I personally know people who smugly patted themselves on the back after converting all their lighting, as having done their part for stoping climate change.  Then they continued to drive their monster trucks, turn the heat up to 78, and the air conditioning down to 60.

The truth of the matter is that we will have to make multiple changes in all sorts of areas to really combat global warming.  And many informed people know quite well that we will have to spend a large portion of our remaining carbon budget in building up the infrastructure we will need going forward.

That I agree with.

We also, however, need to give more serious attention to mitigating the effects of global warming.
Even if we started doing absolutely everything right, tomorrow, it's going to take considerable time to reduce the momentum of the system, much less reverse it.  In the meantime we're likely to see at least 50-100 years of increasing sea levels, shifting growing seasons, etc., and all of the ramifications, thereof.

Maybe some people will be content to sit in their homes on the beach with water up to their arse for 50 years, but I'm thinking most aren't really going to want to deal with that.

If you are interested in the math, I can recommend the book Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming:

https://www.amazon.com/Drawdown-Comprehe...dpSrc=srch

https://www.drawdown.org/

Thanks; I'll look it up.