© 2004-2012 Gri5th Media, LLC.
All rights reserved.
[45 : 0.7380]
Welcome to Stand Firm!
Did you know Congress passed a bill outlawing all incandescent bulbs by the year 2014? According to this video, China is the ONLY place that makes fluorescent bulbs.
This is the same group that refused to consider new drilling options today. I think come November we need a whole new slate of people who are more interested in the people than the position.
|
The bill (HR 1547) was passed in December 2007, and an amendment to the bill (HR 5616) “The Lightbulb Freedom of Choice Act”) was introduced this March. The summary is here . At least someone in Congress has stopped a moment and said ... wait a minute - is this really a good idea?? |
|
#3—You’ll be relieved to know that lots of things are still made in the USA, but most of them aren’t things that we buy every day. For example, airplanes, computer chips, and concrete. (My spouse once had to attend an international concrete trade show; it seems the Russians were amazed to see how many kinds of concrete we produce!). Last year, I bought a great assemble-it-yourself plastic cabinet that was made in North Carolina—and what a pleasure! One of the parts was missing, and I was able to call the company, who sent it to me right away by UPS. The fact is that our manufacturing output is going up—jobs are going down because of new technology that requires fewer workers. All the same, I don’t like the idea that we produce so few of our consumer goods anymore—from a national security standpoint, it seems reckless to allow ourselves to become so dependent on other nations. As for the light bulbs, you’d think that Congress would have something better to do with their time—and if they don’t, they should just take a longer recess and get their noses out of my grocery bag! |
|
All the same, I don’t like the idea that we produce so few of our consumer goods anymore—from a national security standpoint, it seems reckless to allow ourselves to become so dependent on other nations. It certainly seems so to me, In Newark. But I’m glad to hear that there are some things still being made here. On a recent trip to an office supply store, after long searching I managed to find a brand of spiral notebook made in the U.S. All the others were made in China or Vietnam. The gel pens all came from South Korea or Japan. I found some page dividers made in Mexico. China has become a ziggarut of manufacturing. And while I use the light bulbs prescribed by Congress, I agree completely that they should get their noses out of our grocery bags. This, on the scale of things the country is faced with, economically and otherwise, is penny ante. If they didn’t have anything more important to do they should have turned out the lights and gone home. |
|
This is typical political lunacy. Teddy Roosevelt once said (perhaps apocryphally) to one of his Secretaries, a propos some issue of the moment, “Isn’t there something we can appear to be doing?” Making four pieces of breakfast toast and a pot of coffee uses, in the typical household, as much electricity as leaving several 60-watt bulbs on all night. An hour a day of air conditioning dwarfs all household lighting use. But then, these are the guys who eliminated juvenile delinquency in the 1950s by outlawing switchblades and create affordable housing by instituting rent control. What do you expect? |
|
This about says it all! |
|
There are three problems here. One is that the CFL technology, while excellent in many respects, is not perfect (e.g. the trace amounts of mercury in the bulbs). Of course, the same thing can be said about incandescents, so the law just represents a reordering of priorities in terms of features. The second problem is the approach. Why ban incandescents? In some limited cases, they can’t easily be replaced with CFLs. Instead, why not tax incandescents heavily and direct the revenue toward meaningful energy research (carbon sequestration, wind and solar, etc.)? Those who really want incandescents can still get them while financing the future. The final and most important problem is that this is symptomatic of a “make no sacrifices” culture and political institutions that are incapable of taking tough action. Congress favors the showy and the small over the needed and the significant when addressing major issues—whether the issue is entitlement spending, the deficit and national debt, the environment, energy supplies, etc. Whether one is convinced that climate change is a problem or not, it is easy to see that mandating CFL bulbs isn’t a serious attempt to deal with the issue. Sure, little steps matter too, but little steps alone don’t solve problems. |
|
The likelihood of your senator or congressperson actually seeing any of your correspondence, unless you are on a list of VIP’s, is pretty small. I’m sure some of them make an effort to look at selected items from ordinary people, and all of them look at summaries of correspondence prepared by their staffs, but (rather like the rest of us, only more dangerously) they are pretty much overwhelmed by a tidal wave of incoming information. I’m surprised they can even breathe, given that they have to be on a perpetual campaign footing for the most part. Oddly, most of them, even the worst, actually try to do some good, and they all think of themselves as the good guys. ...many years ago I was actively engaged at the state legislature level, and I can vouch for what I say. The problem is not particularly that of legislators’ good intentions, intelligence, or lack thereof. The problem is that they have a very (!) limited understanding (too many are from too few professions, for instance, usually business law and real estate) and they are generally not especially independent/deep thinkers. Given the environment even the best of them find themselves in (awash with lobbyists, for instance, and the need to be perpetually raising money for campaigns), it’s amazing more of them don’t get out as soon as they can. I’m suspect there’s a lot more brown fecal matter heading for the whirling blades, and most people just won’t know when to duck! |
|
One of the things Congress SHOULD have done is see to it that clean-up of broken bulbs and re-cycling instructions of intact used bukbs were printed on the packaging. (See the State of Maine’s site http://mainegov-images.informe.org/dep/rwm/homeowner/cflreport/appendixe.pdf for cleanup advice.) |
|
As to mercury, I’m surprised that our commenters aren’t aware that our dedicated (but apparently bored) public servants solved the mercury pollution problem forever in the late 1990s by banning the tiny mercuric oxide button cells that powered millions of expensive hearing aids and rendering almost any quality camera made between 1976 and 1995 instantly obsolete. There was, of course, no evidence that these tiny mercury sources had any effect at all on the environment. Big Brother loves you. Get with the program. Or else. |
|
KAY4, flourescents also become problematic for folks like my mother, who has a tongue-tangling disorder called EPP (Erythropoietic Protoporphyria) whose presenting symptom is an extreme sensitivity to UV light… like that cast by flourescents. So she’s asking that question too, and quite worriedly, as she’d hate for her government-mandated living room lightbulbs to cause burns! |
|
Hi gang, guess what? CFL’s are obsolete. LED’s are the best, almost last forever and are mor efficient and come in any color. Already on the market and growing. Digital TV is already obsolete and old technology, but unfortunately frozen in technology by the geniuses in Congress. As long as the majority of our voters think that big government is the answer to all our problems they will continue to send those one world, big government fascist to DC. Gas prices are high because China is growing and building and sucking up petroleum and running up the price. They do this with our treasure we send to them for the cheap plastic stuff that quickly breaks such as laptops made in China. Enjoy. |
|
I like the use of LEDs, in fact I want to start replacing my incandescent Christmas lights with LED strings. Fluorescent lights cause migraines for me. If we buy the house we’re making an offer on, I’m replacing the kitchen light (fluorescent) with incandescent track lighting so I can actually be in the room. Going to the grocery store, working in a typical office, sitting in a classroom (yes yes, I know, I’m going to have to deal with fluorescents as a teacher) all give me migraines because of the harshness of the light. |
|
Scruff! Thanks for the laugh….I needed it! Especially today! That was great! PROPHET MICAIAH, |
|
A rational energy policy must address the supply and demand sides of energy. Incandescents are dumb - they are inefficient and raise the air conditioning needs. I checked out the LED lighting (Just google “LED home lighting”.) Some factoids from one website: * LED lights last 30x longer than incandescents and 6x longer than CFLs. (And the price, even now, seems to be close to appropriate given their longevity and efficiency.) |
|
Energy conservations is always more effective than alternative energy production (any inefficiency is wasted resource, thus a CFL that produces 800 Lumens for 17 Watts instead of 60 Watts have cut 43 Watts of wast out of the loop, LED can do it for 10, thus cutting 7 more off). However, the dimwits in Congress obviously don’t know that lighting a home actually a small fraction of a homes energy budget. The computers we’re using are typically 200 Watts (thus 3 standard 60 Watt bulbs). Heating/Air Conditioning and hot water make up the bulk of everyone’s bill (then dying closes). If they were smart, instead of a one restriction that they probably not thought completely through (as in disposal at end of life), they should offer tax & incentives for window, HVAC upgrades, geothermal heat pump, solar hot water, tank-less hot water and things that would truly help the issues and put American contractors to work. Instead they want to ban a type of light bulb an extend unemployment benefits. |
|
For sure there are problems with CFLs, as severally mentioned, and LEDs are better. I have found it hard to find large LEDs, however, and they are pretty pricey. Have not been following Congress but they may be doing this because the country has no national energy policy and oil (fuel at most power plants) is going nowhere but up for a very long time. There is the added advantage of petroleum as well of enriching many states that harbor people trying to kill us and who are succeeding in killing many of our very young, volunteer soldiers. I don’t think nuclear is the option that many believe it to be because of the waste storage problem, which remains a problem for millenia. So as weird as the “must use CFL” legislation is, I think more weirdness will keep coming our way because we can’t seem to confront the root cause of the problem, or get ahead of its curve. We react, too little too late, as the CFL legislation seems to be, rather than taking control of our future. Meanwhile, places like tiny Iceland have hydrogen run buses and one of the first hydrogen filling stations in the world (maybe Shell?). By product is water from vehicles with hydrogen engines. By the way, it would be great if someone started a list of US manufacturers and linked it from this site. I would definitely by stuff from it and even have a contribution to make to it. But its a little like trying to buy from family farmers rather than multi-national agribusiness. How do you do it other than a CSA which don’t always exist where you might live or can be hard to find. |
|
“...geothermal heat pump, solar hot water, tank-less hot water” I’m with ya, Hosea6:6, doing all of these and more at several properties. There is a really cool product called a Solarwall that can be retrofitted to extant buildings also. The US military, Walmart, Toronto airport, Bombadier manufacturing and many other places are using it. The US Dept of Energy gave it some award. Think you can read about it at solarwall.com (or just google it) A Canadian company, too bad for us, but a great product. |
Registered members are welcome to leave comments. Log in here, or register here.
38 Comments •
Amen Jackie!