Of course, this ignores the mercury that is present in fluorescent bulbs, as well as the use cases for incandescent bulbs e.g. as heat lamps and in areas where lights are frequently turned on for short periods before being turned immediately off again (like in a stairwell). I agree with another comment that taxing is a better solution than outright banning, but I'm just not sure where I stand at all, because banning something that is clearly better in some scenarios just seems stupid.
As for the mercury issue, fluorescent light bulbs are much more difficult to dispose of safely. I was reading an article by the Sierra Club (an environmental group) which was arguing that if fluorescent light bulbs use 1/3 the energy of incandescents, and all of that energy is produced by burning coal, then the amount of mercury in the bulbs is approximately equal to the amount of coal saved over 5 years (I'm estimating here, but this was the general idea). Not exactly the most flattering numbers if you ask me.
Note the required cleanup procedures. I think they really need to advertise these types of things a little better. My roommate broke one earlier this year and cleaned it up the same way someone would clean up an incandescent.
They cost more. Also, fluorescent light is unpleasantly cold, and some fluorescent bulbs take a few moments to start up when the power is turned on.
I disagree with these regulations. The kind of lighting you use in your house greatly effects what it feels like. It's a very personal thing for the government to interfere with-- like banning certain styles of clothing because they're wasteful. Why not just tax incandescent bulbs till they cost more than fluorescents?
On the right track, but it might be even better to do a carbon tax rather than a tax targeting one product that is wasteful: it's CO2 that is associated with negative externalities, so the most direct approach is to internalize those externalities by levying a tax on carbon, rather than attacking wasteful users of electricity piecemeal through taxes or bans.
Or cap the amount of carbon production and allow companies to trade it. Taxes give governments more money when they produce more carbon, which isn't a great thing. We don't have a good way to use that tax money to mitigate the effects of carbon - so it's not effectively internalizing that externality.
There are reasonably good ways of spending that money though.
- Reducing taxes elsewhere: a carbon tax is likely to be somewhat regressive, since the poor are the least able to quickly go out and buy a Prius.
- Basic research such as alternate energy.
As far as internalization goes, it does have that effect if you are able to calculate what the costs of the externalities are and thus up the price to that level. That, of course, is the tricky part, but cap and trade also involves determining a level to cap at.
The best use for U.S. carbon tax money might be to eliminate the payroll tax. Then companies could redirect their creative energies. The payroll tax motivates creative ways to hire fewer Americans. They could instead expend that creative energy on ways to burn less carbon.
It would certainly be a disruptive change, but I think a good public policy hacker could find ways to offset the regressiveness. What we lack is good political leadership.
OH MY GOD! I am amazed at the level to which liberals talk about science while rejecting the very foundations of science. (Carbon is not bad. The payroll tax doesn't influence employers, it influences employees-- employees are the ones who pay the tax.)
What we lack is people who understand economics, or have any sense of history-- the "progressive" tax system is what is keeping people poor. A flat tax and no social security would have eliminated poverty in the US 50 years ago, and probably we'd have most of our manufacturing jobs still too...though environmentalist inspired regulation and rampant union violence might have been enough alone to drive it overseas.
The amazing thing to me is how much liberals talk about helping the poor (And conservatives talk about "freedom") while advocating policies that do the opposite, and attacking anyone who actually advocates what they claim to support....
I've long wondered if this was simply because these people have been so deluded that they thinkg up is down and left is right... or if they really actually have another agenda and these causes (poverty and freedom) are just excuses to advocate policies that they know make the problems worse.
The 19th century should have taught you all that socialism and communism will not decrease poverty and will ultimately result in the slaughter of millions of people... and yet you can't turn around without hearing some liberal talk about "global warming" and "externalities" without understanding the first bit of economics... and advocating totalitarian laws to bring about their "dictatorship of the proletariat".
You do not seem to have discussed any of the issues yourself, it might be pointed out. I think most everyone here would agree that the ban on light bulbs is a bad idea, but given some level of consensus that CO2 emissions are a problem, what to do about them?
Doubtless your answer would focus on the fact that there is no problem at all because the existence of an externality of some kind disagrees with your ideology.
You might even be right that there is no problem, because it's not an easy subject, but on the other hand, a number of scientists appear to indicate that there is a problem of some kind.
In any case, you started going off about communists and (in another thread) Nazis, so maybe we can call Godwin's law and leave it at that.
Speaking of voting people down, someone seems to have had a go at everything of mine they could get ahold of, including those completely unrelated to this discussion:
Why do so many people talk about "negative externalities" when they don't even understand basic economics? Its like some liberal ideological center picked up a phrase, told people some vague idea of what it meant, and then got people to advocate it as a justification for ideas whose economic underpinnings having nothing to do with what they think they do.
The bottom line is, your attempt to internalize externalities is proof that you don't know what you're talking about because externalities by definition cannot be internalized.
All this liberal economics is just like that last wave of liberal economics that resulted in 100 million deaths over the period from 1900-2000, only it isn't united under a common term like "socialism" or "communism" but it amounts to the same-- totalitarianism sold as being "good for you".
I understand the economics just fine, thanks, and one of the big proponents of the carbon tax is republican economist Greg Mankiw (see Pigou Club link).
If I were to respond in kind, I would say that libertarianism seems to be a willful ignorance of the very concept of a market externality, as understood by mainstream economics. Certainly, reasonable people can agree to disagree on what specific things constitute externalities in which cases, how bad they are, and what measures, if any, should be taken to correct them - and indeed if those corrective measures are worse than the problem they cure.
However, denying the very existence of factors that are not taken into consideration by a free market seems to be letting your beliefs get the better of reason. And comparing any government intervention with communism is a bit beyond the pale, really.
No, you don't understand economics, and you concede this point when you use the phrase "mainstream economics"... this is a common tactic of socialists to try and cover the fact that they are substituting political ideology for economics.
Economics is a science. ITs not uncommon for those who will not make a scientific argument to instead knock down strawmen, as you just have.
Of course, you threw out enough buzzwords that those who don't look too close will believe you made a counter argument.
What you might consider doing, if you don't agree with the economics, is point out the errors in my logic rather than continue to attack my understanding of economics (which is an awfully broad conclusion to reach from a few comments in any case, I might add). And included in that, for the sake of discussing the economics, is that CO2 emissions are in some way harmful, even if you don't happen to believe that.
Agreed. Fortunately I don't think they'll mind too much as the nation wide smoking ban was accepted with a kind of quiet inevitability.
For right or wrong if the ends are largely supported, people will put up with the means (given they are not too outrageous).
I am currently being illuminated by an energy saving bulb and although it does take a few seconds get going it is generating a positively warm glow.
Smoking bans are a tricky one. There's clearly a negative externality, and it doesn't seem to be something the market is capable of dealing with (why are there never any non-smoking establishments?), so how else might things be made to work without a blanket ban (which, as a non-smoker, I have to admit I love) ?
Of course there were non-smoking establishments before the law. That there were few indicates how little a restaurant has to gain in making them.
The argument for non-smoking in restaurants has always been a safety at work issue for the waiting staff. That is completely ridiculous as there is a market solution: get another job.
Smoking bans are a perfect example of small people getting some bureaucratic power and testing the wall of their box to see how far they can reach. People aren't complaining, so they just push out more and more.
Here in Austria, there are no restaurants and no bars, with the exception of McDonalds, that ban smoking completely. As a consequence, my wife and I go out very rarely - less than we would if Austria, like Italy, had a smoking ban.
What smells funny (ha ha) in terms of market failure to me is that I know that there are plenty of people like ourselves who don't smoke, and prefer not to have to bear the costs of other people's smoking habit (beyond health, if you choose not to believe in that, simply having to wash everything to get the awful smell out). You would think that there might be one or two places that would cater to that segment of the market. But there are none.
Consider a different element: loud music. The market provides a wide range of places to go, from the silent to the dull-roar where you can't hear yourself think. Don't like loud music? Don't go to those bars, then - everything works out just fine with no regulations.
Smoking doesn't work that way, though - perhaps the business of non-smokers might not be enough to keep a few bars alive, or the pressure of smokers in a mixed group of smoker/non smoker friends would keep them from going there, so restaurants/bars are afraid to even try. With a blanket ban, though, everyone is on a level playing field, and the smokers just go outside.
It's sort of like helmet regulations in sports like hockey or cycling: some people wore helmets beforehand, but since they hinder you in certain conditions, they were the exception rather than the rule. By making everyone wear them, they're all safer, and those who care about taking reasonable measures to keep themselves safe aren't at a disadvantage compared to those who are willing to take that risk, and thus the difference is, as it should be, athletic ability.
The bottom line is, what gives you the right to tell people how they have to run their restaurant? And to use violence to enforce it?
You quickly throw out the market, (and claim to understand economics? LOL!) but the reality is- if people preferred it, the restaurants were non-smoking.
Most people, however, don't feel the need to force others to comply with their whims, using violence. Unfortunately, those who do join the government.
"small"? The world has been under assault by these "small" (read socialist) people for the last 108 years... they've managed to murder 100 million people at least in that time period.
they are not getting some buro-cratic power-- they have been exercising the scyth arm for over a century.
Nobody complained when the nazis took over germany or publicly under soviet rule, but eventually both of these tyrannies were overthrown.
just curious--anyone know what LED bulbs are like, vis a vis warm glowing warming glow? If they're similar enough to incandescents, we won't have to turn our homes into cold fluorescent ice palaces to save the whales.
Because the incandescent bulbs are cheaper in the store, and most people in the aisles of Wal-Mart don't spontaneously calculate their long term energy costs.
The ironic thing is, the entity that causes the most pollution (in every country) is that countries government... and the entity causing the most energy waste is generally the government as well.
It never ceases to amaze me how people are so willing to put guns and violence behind their political ideologies. This is probably because they don't realize that is what they are doing-- but every law is backed up by a guy holding a gun and pointing it at someone who breaks it.
ARe you willing to go to someone's house, and take his incandescent light bulbs and shoot him if he resists? You think that's Moral?
Cause that's what this law does, and it is no more moral if you advocate someone else doing it even if you are unwilling to do it yourself.
If anyone wants to learn more about how energy use can be cut drastically in a profitable way, listen to these presentations at Stanford by Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Insitute. He is basically the foremost expert in the world on this kind of stuff. Best few hours I've spent in the last while:
Australia passed a law first but Ireland is putting it into practice much faster. They're not for sale in Ireland by 2009 and gone in Australia by 2012.
Typical, government will stick a gun in people's face just to make them be "politically correct". Nevermind the consequences (or the chicks who will no longer hatch because the heat source that powers the incubators is no longer around... or the farmer who goes out of business because he can't afford to buy thousands of new incubators... etc.)
Government is a disease masquerading as its own cure.
