Are we waking up to the reality that the energy savings from government mandated LED lights are insignificant compared to the health catastrophe they are creating?

As a photographer I love natural and incandescent light over LED light. Certainly LED lighting is efficient but it lacks the full spectrum life on Earth has evolved with, and to me, it just doesn’t look or feel good.

On the domestic front, every winter I swap out our energy efficient LED bulbs for incandescents. Why would I do that? It’s because the quality of light just looks and feels better! Incandescents are supposedly ‘inefficient’ because they emit ‘wasteful’ infrared red light. But incandescent light feels good compared to LED because incandescent is rich in infrared; ultimately that’s why we are drawn to sit in front of stoves and fires on cold winter evenings. If you are a city dweller you are likely denied the right to do that because of the pollution created by burning wood or coal. Even when the winter sun pokes through the clouds, modern life keeps many of us indoors and under LED lighting, and unfortunately, government mandates are making it increasingly harder to find incandescent bulbs in stores.

When the push for LED began some years ago I asked a BC Hydro official why they would get the energy savings they thought they would when the ‘waste’ heat from incandescent bulbs added to the warmth of our homes during the winter months? Moving to LED meant that we would be cranking up the furnace to get the energy from elsewhere – be it gas or hydro. During the summer months we didn’t need our lighting much anyway. He went silent and then said he would need to give it some thought! By the way, I swap back to LEDs in the summer because incandescent bulbs now produce unnecessary heat which then has to be removed by energy hungry air conditioning.

Ten years ago I was stunned by the book “The Fourth Phase of Water” written by Gerald Pollack, head of the Water Lab at the University of Washington State. His work demonstrated, amongst other things, that water can be transformed into a highly energetic and structurally organized state, which is vital for the functioning of living cells. Where does the energy needed to transform water to this higher state come from? It comes from infrared light, and infrared light can penetrate deep within our bodies!

At the other end of the light spectrum we have ultraviolet light which is also essential for human health. We need it to synthesize vitamin D. It isn’t available from indoor lighting and only tanning bed lamps produce the ultraviolet that comes close to that found in sunlight.

We also know that diurnal shifts in the wavelengths of natural light have a profound and complex effect on our hormones. For example, blue light before bed can spoil our sleep. Indoor lighting and electronic devices don’t mimic the variations in natural light – something that may need to change in the future.

The sad reality is that modern life keeps a good proportion of us indoors and under artificial light. I’m convinced that the lack of full spectrum sunlight is a contributing factor in the health crisis our culture is facing. How significant this is compared to the barrage of toxins – both physical and psychological – we are assaulted with daily, we don’t yet know. What I do know is that it feels good to be out in the sun and I will be outside as much as I can!