There was a lot of news about the CFL bulbs today, such as the Opinion Journal, with the ban in the EU on incandescent bulbs going into effect tomorrow. While I don’t have a problem with the bulbs themselves, I see them as a sign of things to come. We, “for the greater good”, must give up something that works fine for something that is more expensive and does not perform as delivered. All of this for a minimal gain at best, but one that cannot be quantified.
When I see the arguments for these little bulbs themselves because they do use less energy, I see the foundation of the argument for cap-and-trade, on a small scale. Sure we need to reduce our use of energy. Of course pollution is bad. Conservation of our resources is a good thing. But the solution here is not to come up with a free market solution but to mandate our choices to where we MUST do what is best for us. While this is going on, we do not address the core problem which is creating more energy and developing better, more cost efficient ways of getting at the problem. Let’s face it . . . if the future super light bulb is so expensive we can only have one per household, we will be energy efficient in the dark.
- FOP Vermillion