At the end of last year, the European Union – the Eco-design Regulatory Committee of the European Commission, to be anally precise – passed a new set of energy efficiency requirements for lamps produced for the EU market. Starting this month, companies operating in Europe can no longer sell or import incandescent light bulbs with a wattage of 100W or above. Retailers are allowed to sell whatever they still have in stock, of course. (Which they are doing. More on that below.)
Now, the European Commission has the reputation of being a veritable leviathan of bureaucracy. In fact, it is much more than just that; it combines half a dozen overused gigantic creature metaphors in a legislative apparatus that regularly excretes directives on, for example, the maximum curvature of cucumbers, laying waste to large stretches of rainforest as those directives, translated into all 23 official languages the European Union has to offer, are printed out and then, presumably, thrown away immediately without being read or finding secondary employment in the parliamentary cafeterias to prop up wobbly tables. Although, to be fair, the paper probably doesn't come from the rainforest but rather the woods of Scandinavia, heavily subsidised by Brussels and... Never mind.
This regulatory zeal notwithstanding, getting rid of outdated light bulbs seemed liked a fairly straightforward and sensible approach to me. It's estimated to reduce the entire carbon dioxide output of Europe by two to three percent. And it saves people up to €50 per year on electricity bills alone. The EC committee added a plethora of other advantages, but most of them only exist in that strange netherworld of Conference Room 28-B where they spawned from their creators' crania and do not have any bearing on reality, so I'll leave them out.
The bulbs themselves – called CFL, compact fluorescent lamps – are not hugely different from their retiring ancestors. Except more efficient, maybe. Where the old bulbs converted only about five percent of their power into light (the rest being radiated as heat), the CFLs manage about 20 percent.
Fig. 1: The incandescent light bulb, an endangered species.
However, the German public, fuelled, as always, by the media, are strangely reluctant to be straightforward and sensible. A growing opposition, each of whose members is made up in equal parts of whiny child, sulky teenager and senile elderly, is joining a nonsensical crusade against the CFL. Why they possess such a strong emotional attachment to a heat-driven light emitter, I couldn't say, but it appears to be severely misplaced nostalgia coupled with latent anti-European sentiment.
If you want your populism bizarre and stupid, look no further than German newspaper Die Welt:
"[Doctors] suggest that nearly all diseases of civilisation, including cancer, are being fostered by energy-saving lamps."
(Emphasis mine, duh.)
Cancer? I'm not quite sure what those doctors think people are doing with their light bulbs, and even less certain of their qualifications seeing as CFLs have been in use for more than 15 years now without complications or problems, but I wouldn't trust them with a simple torchlight. The article regurgitates scary words like quicksilver and macular degeneration (loss of vision in the centre of the visual field - you're welcome) but is disturbingly – if predictably – short on actual science, despite containing two self-proclaimed experts.
Fig. 2: End result of compact fluorescent lamps. Artist's interpretation, but it's going to look exactly like that, people.
A second species of, dare I say... illuminated bulb warriors are happily living out their Hoodesque fantasies of fighting against tyranny and oppression. Meet Silvana Koch-Mehrin, member of the libertarian Free Democratic Party and evidently several fluorophores short of a glow stick.
Fig. 3: Silvana Koch-Mehrin before and after exposure to the light of a CFL.
She professed her love, which is to say, pretend-love for the sake of pandering to a base of terminally stupid voters (although they're libertarian already *shrugs*), in an interview with the Reutlinger General-Anzeiger, and if that name doesn't scream toothbrush moustache, I'll streak across an autobahn.
Miss Koch-Mehrin starts off comparatively well, by confessing that she did not, up to that point, have any special feelings for lamps. I wish this was hyperbole I was adding to the translation for comedic effect, but that is really what she says. It is downhill from then on:
"I won't be patronised, that's why I have discovered my heart for the light bulb. […] If we force consumers to buy certain products, it's socialism instead of climate protection."
Yes, socialism is a scary word over here, too.
The interviewer – whoever they are, the editor wisely removed their name from the article – is not presenting him- or herself any better, handing Miss Koch-Mehrin one inane question after the other. I would say they went out for a candlelit dinner afterwards, but it probably was illuminated like this:
Fig. 4: Nothing to see here.
People are stockpiling the incandescents as if they wanted to create a second sun. I'd love to think there was a better reason behind this than just childish, ill-informed rebellion against some perceived EU threat, but if there is, it has disappeared behind the glare of a million inefficient, outdated light bulbs. The scientific literature is very obvious, but it gets ignored. Which annoys me immensely, but that is most likely going to be another post.
And just because everyone was waiting for it: Miss Koch-Mehrin... the scaremongering doctors... the populist newspaper editors... they... just don't seem too bright.
Now, the European Commission has the reputation of being a veritable leviathan of bureaucracy. In fact, it is much more than just that; it combines half a dozen overused gigantic creature metaphors in a legislative apparatus that regularly excretes directives on, for example, the maximum curvature of cucumbers, laying waste to large stretches of rainforest as those directives, translated into all 23 official languages the European Union has to offer, are printed out and then, presumably, thrown away immediately without being read or finding secondary employment in the parliamentary cafeterias to prop up wobbly tables. Although, to be fair, the paper probably doesn't come from the rainforest but rather the woods of Scandinavia, heavily subsidised by Brussels and... Never mind.
This regulatory zeal notwithstanding, getting rid of outdated light bulbs seemed liked a fairly straightforward and sensible approach to me. It's estimated to reduce the entire carbon dioxide output of Europe by two to three percent. And it saves people up to €50 per year on electricity bills alone. The EC committee added a plethora of other advantages, but most of them only exist in that strange netherworld of Conference Room 28-B where they spawned from their creators' crania and do not have any bearing on reality, so I'll leave them out.
The bulbs themselves – called CFL, compact fluorescent lamps – are not hugely different from their retiring ancestors. Except more efficient, maybe. Where the old bulbs converted only about five percent of their power into light (the rest being radiated as heat), the CFLs manage about 20 percent.
Fig. 1: The incandescent light bulb, an endangered species.However, the German public, fuelled, as always, by the media, are strangely reluctant to be straightforward and sensible. A growing opposition, each of whose members is made up in equal parts of whiny child, sulky teenager and senile elderly, is joining a nonsensical crusade against the CFL. Why they possess such a strong emotional attachment to a heat-driven light emitter, I couldn't say, but it appears to be severely misplaced nostalgia coupled with latent anti-European sentiment.
If you want your populism bizarre and stupid, look no further than German newspaper Die Welt:
"[Doctors] suggest that nearly all diseases of civilisation, including cancer, are being fostered by energy-saving lamps."
(Emphasis mine, duh.)
Cancer? I'm not quite sure what those doctors think people are doing with their light bulbs, and even less certain of their qualifications seeing as CFLs have been in use for more than 15 years now without complications or problems, but I wouldn't trust them with a simple torchlight. The article regurgitates scary words like quicksilver and macular degeneration (loss of vision in the centre of the visual field - you're welcome) but is disturbingly – if predictably – short on actual science, despite containing two self-proclaimed experts.
Fig. 2: End result of compact fluorescent lamps. Artist's interpretation, but it's going to look exactly like that, people.A second species of, dare I say... illuminated bulb warriors are happily living out their Hoodesque fantasies of fighting against tyranny and oppression. Meet Silvana Koch-Mehrin, member of the libertarian Free Democratic Party and evidently several fluorophores short of a glow stick.
Fig. 3: Silvana Koch-Mehrin before and after exposure to the light of a CFL.She professed her love, which is to say, pretend-love for the sake of pandering to a base of terminally stupid voters (although they're libertarian already *shrugs*), in an interview with the Reutlinger General-Anzeiger, and if that name doesn't scream toothbrush moustache, I'll streak across an autobahn.
Miss Koch-Mehrin starts off comparatively well, by confessing that she did not, up to that point, have any special feelings for lamps. I wish this was hyperbole I was adding to the translation for comedic effect, but that is really what she says. It is downhill from then on:
"I won't be patronised, that's why I have discovered my heart for the light bulb. […] If we force consumers to buy certain products, it's socialism instead of climate protection."
Yes, socialism is a scary word over here, too.
The interviewer – whoever they are, the editor wisely removed their name from the article – is not presenting him- or herself any better, handing Miss Koch-Mehrin one inane question after the other. I would say they went out for a candlelit dinner afterwards, but it probably was illuminated like this:
Fig. 4: Nothing to see here.People are stockpiling the incandescents as if they wanted to create a second sun. I'd love to think there was a better reason behind this than just childish, ill-informed rebellion against some perceived EU threat, but if there is, it has disappeared behind the glare of a million inefficient, outdated light bulbs. The scientific literature is very obvious, but it gets ignored. Which annoys me immensely, but that is most likely going to be another post.
And just because everyone was waiting for it: Miss Koch-Mehrin... the scaremongering doctors... the populist newspaper editors... they... just don't seem too bright.
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