[TheForge] Re: OT: Government waste

[Mike Spencer]

Jeff Wilson wrote:

> [My CFL bulbs] are dim when first turned on and slow to brighten.
> Many have failed in 2 to 5 years.  At least three have exploded!

And did you clean up the bits with a vacuum cleaner?

That would be the first thought of most people: Get all the bits out of
the upholstery, carpet, cracks in the floor. 

Only that has a multiplier effect on dispersing mercury vapor around
the house.  Worse, if you don't throw out the disposable bag and
thoroughly clean out the machine itself, subsequent uses of the vacuum
cleaner have the potential to further disperse Hg vapor.  For an
adult, this may make only a small contribution to accumulated Hg but
for rug rats with greater sensitivity to Hg poisoning, the risk is
proportionately greater.

I'm surprised that Bruce, who once reproved me for my relatively
cavalier attitude toward the risk of poisoning from copper sulfate,
hasn't posted a scare piece on the long- and short-term effects of
globally distributing hundreds of tons of mercury in milligram
aliquots to billions of people with no knowledge of biology or
toxicology (or much of any other science) beyond 6th or 7th grade
level.

These risks don't even mention the conveniently remote and, to us,
invisible consequences  to workers and the neighborhoods in China
where, AFAIK, most of these CFLs are made.

Personally, I think the energy-use statistics may be numerically
correct but that these statistics are being used to persuade the
public (among which I count science/technology-challenged
legislators), stupidly or maliciously, of the truth of putative
trade-offs and benefits that are are specious.  It's not clear who
most benefits from mandatory conversion to CFLs but it isn't me and it
probably isn't you.


- Mike


  Hanlon's Razor:

  Don't attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by
  stupidity. 

  Spencer's Corollary

  If you find yourself in a position that calls for the application of
  Hanlon's Razor, you're already screwed.


-- 
Michael Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada       .~. 
                                                           /V\ 
mspencer at tallships.ca                                     /( )\
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/                        ^^-^^