First They Came for the Toilets

Filed under:Not Cool,Politics — posted by Anwyn on January 28, 2010 @ 8:00 pm

…and mandated them all to low-flow, and I said nothing because I didn’t care. I just flushed a few more times … although others took a different approach. At some point they mandated the wine bottles, and I said nothing, because as long as they still have a hole in the top it doesn’t affect me.

Now they’re coming for the light bulbs, and most people seem completely insensible to the danger.

Yet about 75 percent said they are not aware of the impending federal requirement for greater energy efficiency that will lead to the phaseout of less efficient lighting.

“Less efficient” by a standard of raw energy consumed, perhaps. “Less efficient” by a standard of, you know, actually lighting things to a visible spectrum and being safe to handle around your toddler, not so much: Incandescents are far more efficient than flourescents on both counts. And there’s this ill-considered boilerplate from GE:

“We’re not sensing a rush by consumers to comply with the looming federal standards,” Kathy Sterio, GE Lighting’s general manager of consumer marketing said in a prepared statement.

“There’s a major shift to CFLs but it’s clearly is a matter of educated consumers choosing CFLs for their strengths,” she said. “Our marketing, advertising and packaging have espoused the value of energy-efficient CFLs for over a decade.”

Such a charming implication, that those of us who still prefer incandescents are uneducated yokels.

H/t J.

one comment so far »

  1. The days of the 4-for-a-buck incandescent may well be over soon, but:
    – there is nothing stopping you from stocking up on them now
    – ghastly compact florescent and LED are not the only option:

    Various makers are encapsulating halogen lamps in traditional light-bulb-shape bulbs. Although the cost is higher than the traditional bulb, so is the efficiency by 25-30%, and the light output is really just as good. As the efficiency targets rise, I’m sure that these will get better too.
    “Halogena Energy Saver” is one brand at Amazon and Home Depot. They cost about as much as the twrilycue bulbs, won’t last as long as the twrlyies are alleged to last, but give good light output.
    Believe me, I share your distaste for what has been mandated. But it is not as bad as we might think.

    Or as my wife says: You shouldn’t need advanced degrees in technology in order to select light bulbs that actually do what they are supposed to, but fortunately my husband has such degrees so the ban doesn’t much matter to us, since he finds it fun to pore over catalogs and select appropriate lamps for each category of enclosed fixture/open, base up/down, photocell/standard-switch, exposed to cold/inside-the-house, switched frequently/left-on, instant-full-brightness for stairs/can take warmup time…

    Comment by DOuglas2 — January 29, 2010 @ 10:02 am

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image: detail of installation by Bronwyn Lace