I thought I would start off my first post with a topic very near and dear to my heart; lighting. It should be no secret in the weeks and months ahead, that I will be revealed to be a designer, so I will state it now that I am. To me, the most important aspect of design is lighting! Without light, the majority of human beings who rely on their sight as their top sense would not be able to see and make quick assessments of their surrounding environment.The issue I wanted to address is actually our cultural shift toward Compact Fluorescent Lightbulbs (CFLs). This of course was another dynamic shift in consumer practices led by environmental groups and the manufacturers of these products. I don't think you can actually go for 5 minutes of watching TV without seeing an ad touting their money saving, energy saving, environment saving and soul saving properties. They last longer, won't kill the polar bears, and will save you so much money you won't have to shop at Walmart anymore. Would you believe it that their message is almost entirely hype?
They always forget to tell you that those curly, soft-white tubes require more energy and resources to produce, are toxic, and last just as long as incandescent lightbulbs. That's right, last AS long as the old outdated, Edison has an idea, ubiquitous globe bulbs. Howard Brandston, a fantastic lighting designer lays out that argument in an excellent Q & A for the New York Times below.
Also coming from a background in nature conservation, the entire CFL trend is an environmental disaster in the making. We are essentially swapping out a theoretical "smaller carbon footprint" for poisoning our ground water with mercury. I'll save the argument for why carbon is our friend, not our foe for later; but millions of tons of mercury vapor CFLs being shoved down the throats of Americans and others worldwide is a recipe for disaster. I would love to see how they "recycle" these bulbs, but I get the feeling it's another one of those feel good schemes. There are a number of studies that explain how a single gram of mercury can contaminate a 20 acre lake. We read about high school labs being closed so Hazmat can rush in and clean up a mercury spill, but never for a broken fluorescent light.
Now here are the numbers. A fluorescent lightbulb can contain between 1 - 4 milligrams of mercury. Lets go with the accepted and commonly repeated amount, 4 milligrams. Census bureau estimated 127 million housing units in 2007. We'll be conservative and say 120 million, and we'll thank Fannie and Freddie while we're at it. In order for the EPA to get their numbers on energy saving, they used an average of 40 lightbulbs per home. All and all, that is almost 1 million grams of mercury. If improperly disposed of today, that's enough to contaminate 30,000 square miles of freshwater. When the government has their way, every American and American business would own enough mercury vapor in light bulbs to contaminate ALL 5 of the Great Lakes.
If environmentalists, and the government really cared about saving energy, and cleaning up our planet; they would all ask us to change our habits, dim our incandescent lights, and recycle burned out bulbs. Instead they are hoping to promote so-called "green businesses" because they in-turn promote them and their campaigns. Besides, how many incandescent bulbs give off large EMFs and flicker in a way known to make people ill? None. Not all new technology is better technology; stick with tungsten.
UPDATE - - I forgot to add, that this massive shift toward poisonous, unhealthy lighting products, is to save an ideal $600 million. California is about $20 billion in debt, and the nation is looking at a $4 trillion deficit. It's still a scam.
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