Re: Fluorescent Bulbs Are Known to Zap Domestic Tranquillity; Energy-Savers a Turnoff for Wives

["Robert Green" <ROBERT_GREEN1963@xxxxxxxxx>]

"Dave Houston" <nobody@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:4654d4e3.13040078@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> "Robert Green" <ROBERT_GREEN1963@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> http://www.observer.com/2007/fluorescent-fanatics-turn-me

<<Canada and Australia, which earlier this year, in separate spasms of First
World environmental guilt, announced that they would outlaw incandescent
bulbs by 2012 and 2010, respectively.>>

There's a lot more the First World could do with their guilt. Instead, we
believe we have offloaded the problem by letting the Chinese poison *their*
air and buying their cheaper, less "green" products by the containership.
"Their" air turns out to be "our air" eventually.

<<nanny-state capitalism: a cross-ideological alliance to force-market lousy
products to the public. The left gets to see environmental virtue written
into law; the right gets to see the negative consequences of that law fall
on individual consumers, rather than, say, the power industry.>>

That's why it makes so much more sense to catch carbon and mercury at the
stack, not introduce a new standard using bulbs that contain one of the very
substances we're trying to control!  But business has become very adept at
blaming John Q. Public for any problems that arise.  Just listen to Big Oil
whine about how those pesky environmental rules *forced* these price rises
as they bank their largest profits in history.

When there are just a few players, like the cable, cellphone, oil and
utilities industries, they pretty much can set the prices where they want
to.  The EU's gotten together to try to put an end to $12 calls between
countries that are only 4 minutes long.  They've woken up to the fact that
with these huge industries, there aren't any real competitors, so of course
they set their prices as high as the public will bear.  Look for $5 a gallon
gas by this time next year.  Big Oil knows that people will just suck it up
so what's to stop them?  When was the last time you saw the price of
anything like gas or electricity or lumber go backwards as much as it leaps
forward?  There's a ratchet effect to prices and worse things are coming,
and soon.

<<And the people get to squint to see anything. Yes, eliminating
incandescent bulbs cuts down on X amount of electrical use and Y amount of
power-plant fuel and Z amount of greenhouse-gas emissions>>

Looks like he's as wary as I am about calculations that "prove" the excess
electricity saved won't simply be squandered elsewhere or exactly how many
milligrams of mercury are going to be added per cubic inch of soil by
switching to CFLs.  Too many unknowables to form concrete conclusions,
particularly since personal behavior like willingness to recycle is such a
large element in the equations.  Worse, still, no one seems to agree on
simple things, like how much juice is used in lights per year in the entire
country.

<<The campaign for the low-flow toilet seemed noble?who doesn?t want to save
water??but it was smug and dishonest . . . The compact fluorescent light
bulb, which is supposed to take over when incandescents are outlawed, is
another low-flow toilet.>>

We've had this discussion before.  High efficiency on many occasions seems
to be synonymous with "no excess capacity."  We just replaced a standard
toilet with a low-flush model and for the first time in twenty years I've
had to plunge the toilet at least half a dozen times in the last two months.
I wonder how many double and triple flushers such toilets have spawned?

<<Compact-fluorescent boosters say the bulbs have come far since then. What
they mean is that they?re no longer laughably inadequate?they?re just
mildly, annoyingly inadequate.>>

Forcing people to use an immature technology could easily sabotage it.  I
think that's what happened with CFLs.  They started out with a big lie:
"Lifetime" rated bulbs were really two or three year bulbs.  People felt
cheated, particularly since they were often sacrificing light quality,
dimmer capabilities to achieve the "savings" that never materialized.

--
Bobby G.