CFL bulbs are absolutely evil, I hate them ...
with a vengence.
The USA government has already made law that is diabolically designed to be gradually phased into effect years after it was already passed. It was a little efficiency provision burried deep within the
Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, which few politicians seemed to notice.
Big business interests have manipulated the environmentalists into supporting their scheme. Now, regular incandescent light bulbs are already becoming illegal in countries throughout the world: the USA, Canada, Australia, the European Union, the UK, Chile, and likely soon to be Mexico and China now.
Despite what all the misguided environmentalists claim, they don't save energy, they end up costing more money, and they are
worse for the environment.
See the thread: "Compact Fluorescent Bulbs: NOT a Bright Idea!"
http://www.zoklet.net/bbs/showthread.php?p=3743100
And the claim that CFL's last longer than the old light bulbs is another lie. You can buy incandescent light bulbs off the internet that last longer than the new spiral CFL's, with lifetimes over 10,000 hours. Has anyone seen this video before?
There was a light bulb conspiracy to make all the bulbs burn out faster so people would have to buy more of them, more profits for the light bulb companies.
And guess what else? Those new more expensive CFL bulbs do not last nearly as long as the manufacturers claim. And even when they do, they become much dimmer after many years, making it hard to even see, so you will have to buy a new one before the old one even burns out. That is another little trick the light bulb companies are using, make the bulbs give off less light so people will have to buy more of them to light a room. We can also see this with the advanced LED bulbs that have just become available in stores. Interesting how the higher wattage LED's are so much more expensive. Despite what the packaging claims, a single 20-dollar LED bulb is not going to put out enough light to provide decent lighting to your room.
By banning regular incandescent bulbs, the light bulb companies are forcing everyone to buy their more expensive alternatives.
Quote:
The use of efficiency mandates to snuff out the standard light bulb was an exercise of unadulterated crony capitalism. It came about after big bulb manufacturers, frustrated by their customers’ refusal to switch from cheap throwaway incandescents to the far more profitable compact fluorescents touted by greens, decided to play hardball.
“So some years ago,’’ The New York Times Magazine noted last month, “Philips [Electronics] formed a coalition with environmental groups, including the Natural Resources Defense Council, to push for higher standards. ‘We felt that we needed to . . . show that the best-known lighting technology, the incandescent light bulb, is at the end of its lifetime,’ says Harry Verhaar, the company’s head of strategic sustainability initiatives.’’
Other corporations joined the plot, lobbying Congress to croak a product Americans overwhelmingly like and compel them to buy the more expensive substitute the industry was eager to sell them. The entire scheme, a lobbyist for the National Electrical Manufacturers Association testified candidly in 2007, was “at the industry’s initiative.’’ Unable to convince consumers to voluntarily abandon Edison’s light bulb, Big Business got the government to force the issue.
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The Unholy Alliance between Philips and the Greens
An unholy alliance (discovered by Elsevier journalist Syp Wynia) between a large multinational company and a multinational environmental organization succeeded in their lobby to phase out, and ultimately by 2012 forbid, the sale of incandescent bulbs – not only in the Netherlands but in the whole of the European Union. The multinational company wanted to develop a new market for products with a high profit margin, and the environmental multinational wanted to impress the citizens of Europe with the imminent catastrophe caused by anthropogenic climate change. That would also be of benefit to its battered public image.
Philips started lobbying to phase out the very product on which its original success is based. They started this campaign ten years ago. Their line of thought is clear: banning incandescent bulbs creates an interesting market for new kinds of home lighting, such as “energy savers” (CFL’s, compact fluorescent lamps) and LED’s (light emitting diodes). The mark-up on these new products is substantially higher than that on old-fashioned incandescent bulbs. (A 70-Watt equivalent LED bulb, for example, costs 55 dollars
each, while a 60-Watt equivalent costs 25 dollars. Of course, many other companies are selling cheaper LED products, claiming a "60 Watt equivalents", when in reality their bulbs put out much less light.)
Energy savers (CFL’s) were introduced on the market in 1980, but they never succeeded in gaining wide acceptance from consumers. Despite their reduced power consumption, most consumers found their light too "harsh" and unnatural to light their homes. On top of that they were slow starters, annoyingly taking a few seconds just to come on while flickering, and then taking several minutes to reach full brightness.
Multiple government campaigns, aimed at promoting the idea that energy savers contribute to the well-intentioned goal of reducing the energy consumption of households, failed to convince citizens.
The spectre of catastrophic climate change offered a new opportunity for the strategists and marketing specialists at Philips headquarters. They changed their marketing concept and jumped on the Global Warming band wagon. From that moment on, energy-saving bulbs could be put on the market as icons of responsibility toward climate change. This would give Philips a head start in the CFL end LED business. The competition would be left far behind by aggressive use of European patent law.
In 2006, Dutch legislators caved in under the combined lobbying pressure by Philips and Greenpeace. A parliamentary majority in The Hague embraced the idea of banning incandescent bulbs and ordered the Dutch Environment Minister, Jacqueline Cramer, to lobby for an extension of the ban to all states in the European Union.
Spiral CFL lightbulbs, and the big corporations that push them
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