Small changes, big reactions

The washingqueen came back from a night on the town last Friday all fired up about energy efficiency. She was out with a large and lively group of friends celebrating a fourtieth birthday when somehow, between prawn crackers, noodles and chow mein, the subject of energy efficient lightbulbs came up. Perhaps someone bought one of the celebrants a compact flourescent birthday present. Anyway as the wine flowed and the candles burned, the conversation got quite heated and two camps emerged around the banquet table - those for and those against.

It's hard to believe that lightbulbs could be the source of such heat (well, apart from the incandescent variety) but if my reporters account is to be believed then the lightbulb revolution could be to blame for sowing the seeds of discontent in many a marriage. Based on her observations that evening, the washingqueen holds an emerging hypothesis that men love energy efficient lightbulbs more than they love their wives. For that night the men (without exception) argued the case for cool flourescent efficiency while the women protested heatedly about the injustice of men stripping out soft warm incandescent lighting without consultation or compensation.

Now this is no scientific survey, and may or may not be representative of male and female values, behaviour or attitudes to environmental issues, but it certainly rings a little true in our household. To me a light is a light is a light and the more efficient the better. OK, soft warm lights are nice for creating mood but I can live without them. But I'm not sure the washingqueen sees it that way and it sounds like the same may be true for many of her homeloving sisters.

I wonder how many men around the world have innocently changed a lightbulb, doing their bit for the cause, striking a very small blow against climate change, and inadvertently started a war at home. Perhaps the battle to prevent climate change involves struggle at many more levels than I realised; between sacrifice and comfort, efficiency and personal freedom, logic and emotion, and man and wife.