Comments

@ Verbalist.... Very sad truth is you're right. I've spent the last 15 years trying to show my family the impacts of consumerism. Now that even the most hardened skeptic in our family agrees that our weather is NOTHING like it was 20-40 years ago... they still all drive 8 cylinder 4x4 vehicles as daily commuters and drive 100 miles to shop "for school clothes" at the same stores we have locally. They've watched as beautiful badlands near the bluff turned into landfills... then neighborhoods filled with mcmansions... to rich ghettoes, littered with every toy one can spoil an adult or child with. Won't have too much sympathy if the swine flu wipes out about 80% of our population this winter... will just consider it God working to protect the planet.

@ Skillet - well, see there's the problem... Most lemmings aren't smart enough to know what's good for them or even what their own needs are... Even in my own family... the one's that gripe loudest about being broke all the time are the ones that use Suburbans and uber-trucks for daily commuters. Yet when gas hit $4.50 a gallon and the rest of us with our more reasonable vehicles were walking and taking bicycles... they stuck out it to the point of near bankruptcy... Which I suspect is 80% of what drove the economic collapse... The other 20% was the greed of catering to those idiots. Sometimes people aren't smart enough to be making their own choices.... (which is why Mom still tells you EAT YOUR VEGETABLES).

Aaagh! I don't understand why we're wasting billions of dollars re-inventing the wheel... These are NO DIFFERENT than a "community EV"... (glorified golf carts). Why not simply create a new class of vehicle called an LV or "city car" that can only go 40 mph and therefore not need the same crash resistance as a 6,000 lb SUV intended for the freeway? Make them affordable (even if this means using old technology) so people are willing to give up some of today's luxuries for tomorrow's economy... (Has no one else figured out this is why detroit failed? The cost of their product tripled while incomes remained stagnant). When enough of the first cars get crushed by SUVs and liability premiums for SUVs soar... these oversized dinosaurs will become relics of our wasteful past.

Man - talk about beat with an ugly stick...

I think a ban is premature... Do they save energy? YES. But.... CFLs break VERY easily, they do not fit in half of the fixtures in my home, and are unusable below 66 degrees (which is half my home from Oct to March). They work GREAT for families that have rooms where the lights are always on... but the savings are lost on those who are single and tend to be better about turning lights off (as on/off burns them out prematurely). Halogens cost 15x as much (as incandescent) and burn out twice as fast.... (and use rare materials)... (having 2-3 burn out in a week can totally screw up a budget!) LED lights cost 1,000 as much and provide 1/2 the light (and use precious materials)... So - CFLs are not a panacea for the world's energy woes.. more like a short-term ploy to get rid of some of the competition in the saturated bulb manufacturing biz.