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Bulb ban will make black market
for incandescents
Dallas Hansen
On Thursday, Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn announced he's going
to save me $50 a year by removing incandescent light bulbs—a
bad habit I cannot seem to break on my own—from the retail
marketplace by 2012. Mr. Lunn would prefer our using compact
fluorescents, illuminated by a thrifty 24 watts of electricity versus
the profligate 60 of my clear incandescents, and he's determined to
force a switch regardless of consumers' wishes.
The only drawback I see to a compact fluorescent conversion is that the
lighting in my 95 year-old home will henceforth be hideous. The
refinished hardwoods, elegant banister, French doors and plaster
archway will fail to be so splendid under a colour of light typically
associated with such places as call centres, intensive care units, and
auto parts stores.
Governments worldwide are seemingly annoyed that consumers still favour
Thomas Edison's 128 year-old invention. They're cheap, but
"inefficient"—ostensibly to a degree that would have their
sale criminalized. Will this create a black market for incandescents? A
War on Edison?
Many consumers haven't gone fluorescent for the same reason I
haven't—it looks and feels nasty. Not all lighting is created
equal; beyond brightness, there are qualitative elements. Which
explains why so many upscale retail stores eschew fluorescents for
halogen (incandescent) lighting. And it isn't just my intuition telling
me fluorescent lighting is evil. Dr. John
Ott, a pioneering researcher into full-spectrum light, experimented
with mice and found found that, "...[T]he life span of the animals was
more than doubled under full natural light, as compared to those under
the pink fluorescent light." Indeed, a number of scientific studies
have linked fluorescent lighting to depression, impotence, headaches,
eye strain, sleeping disorders and skin cancers.
Drawbacks of fluorescent lighting aside, the banning of a product on
the basis of its inefficiency sets a terrible precedent. If governments
are going to intervene in the marketplace over light bulbs, why stop
there? Let's ban registrations of fuel-inefficient vehicles, starting
with V-10, V-8 and V6 engines by 2012 and extending to anything that
isn't hybrid-electric by 2015. Let's ban meat. Ban dairy, gasoline
lawnmowers, leafblowers, flushing after only peeing, falling asleep
with the TV on, and single detached homes. If we cut enough corners in
life, make these small sacrifices for the good of the collective, we
can meet Kyoto's challenge, thus saving the planet—right?
Frighteningly enough, there are a lot of people in Canada who would
welcome many of the absurd steps in this hypothetically radical
left-wing agenda. Surreally, it's a Conservative minister that is
initiating a market intervention to remove an long-established and
satisfying product from stores. But perhaps that makes sense. What
might be the reaction if it were provincial NDP or the federal Liberals
introducing this?
The incandescent bulb, a powerful invention that has changed our daily
life in so many ways during the 20th century, makes for an odd
scapegoat amid all this global warming razzmatazz. Lighting constitutes
but a fraction of the typical household energy consumption. And to me,
it's worth $50 a year to enjoy the sort of lighting I prefer. I
recycle, shop locally, don't drive, carry my groceries in a backpack
rather than a plastic bag, and my compost bin is on order. If I want to
shell out for lighting that doesn't feel like poison, why does the
government want to stop me?
Maybe there's more to it than just inefficiency. It seems to be part of
a general, unconscious trend within society to embrace a brute
rationality at the cost of aesthetic values. Neo-classical and terra
cotta buildings, for example, are supposedly impossible today because,
although our economy is wealthier than ever, the construction costs
demand minimalist concrete, glass and steel. Where wearing a suit was
once mandatory, the new office uniform is khakis and a golf
shirt—often with sneakers. Dining room conversation during
family dinner has given way to a new ritual of silently zoning out in
front of the TV.
If bulb manufacturers aren't outraged at being forced to shut down
their incandescent manufacturing, it's because the market gap will soon
be filled with demand for more expensive (and profitable) compact
fluorescent bulbs. Somehow I think they're more excited than annoyed.
Meanwhile, I've found a way around this. For the next five years I'll
be stockpiling boxloads of classic incandescent bulbs up in the
attic—enough for dozens of lifetimes, since they are so
cheap. Not only will I never have to suffer using compact fluorescents,
I'll have made a smart investment. When prohibition begins, and your
money is looking for incandescents, talk to me and I can sort you
out—just so long as you're not an undercover.
www.dallashansen.com |
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