Christmas light pollution

[sawyl]

For as long as I can remember my mater has decried lurid xmas lights, with the shockingly vulgarity of flashing lights her particular bête noire. Well, according to the Institute of Physics at least, it looks like she might be on to something. Yesterday's Grauniad featured an article which reported that if everyone in the country slapped a tawdry light show on the outside of their house, then carbon dioxide emissions would increase by 1.6m tonnes and the country would appear boorish and uncouth. Ok, so they didn't actually say that it would make the country appear boorish, but I'm sure that was just a minor oversight — it was definitely there in the subtext.