matgb | EU lightbulb ban: a bad law made to be broken?

I'm a liberal. I don't like banning things. I'm an environmentalist, I think destroying the planet is a Bad Thing, and am fairly convinced by the science on climate change. But, as is always the case, liberalism wins out. Banning traditional lightbulbs is a bad idea.

Sometimes, they're the most efficient method of both heating and lighting something; lava lamps my be kitsch decorative junk not to everyone's taste, but there's no reason to ban them. Snake and reptile housings also benefit from a combine light/heat source, etc. Sometimes, they're simply a very cheap alternative, and when you're living on very little money at all, and generally don't use lights that much but need to have them, they're an acceptable option.

The answer, therefore, is not to ban them. The liberal answer is to apply a pigouvian tax on them. You can even, if you like, apply a pigouvian subsidy on the much more expensive, complex and hard to dispose of safely "environmentally friendly" bulbs containing mercury and other expensive poisons to make them cheaper. But banning something? It's just asking for trouble:

German heatball wheeze outwits EU light bulb ban | Reuters (via)

Rotthaeuser has pledged to donate 30 cents of every heatball sold to saving the rainforest, which the 49-year-old sees as a better way of protecting the environment than investing in energy-saving lamps, which contain toxic mercury.

I think Herr Rotthaeuser and his brother-in-law deserve a little bit of praise for their Heatball project. And they're not even breaking the law, just showing it up as the futility it is.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

1) Noting down research in the hope that someone (maybe me) might remember it: Pigovian Tax: A special tax levied on activites that create excess social costs, such as polluting the environment.

2) It's interesting to compare the disappearing incandescent lightbulbs with the disappearing cathode ray television set. The manufacturers have decided, independently and without external influence, to discontinue production of CRT sets, without regard to arguments that the CRT gives better pictures than the flat-panel variety. There's a hidden economic message in this, but I'm blown if I know what it is.

K, for 2), pure speculation.

Low energy lightbulbs are being imposed by Govt using cack handed authoritarian methods. There's no prestige or need to have them to show off, and people resent being told to switch to something that appears more expensive, even if they know the maths makes things the other way.

In addition, lightbulbs need replacing a lot.

TVs, on the other hand, can last for years, decades even. Manufacturers have a built in desire to get you to change your TV more often than you actually need to, something that isn't true of lightbulbs.

Plus, no one is telling you to get a flatscreen plasma/LCD. Instead, they're simply being presented as 'cool', or a nifty new gadget, or 'better'. It's in the manufacturers interest to present this as true, as it incentivises replacing the older, smaller, less cool CRTs.

Personally, I didn't notice much difference between my parents widescreen plasma mounted on the wall and a normal CRT, and I prefer LCD monitors to CRTs as they take less space and are more easily portable (we're a bit cramped here, as you know).

But there's a clear economic incentive for everyone in the industry to promote non CRT tellies, as it give an extra reason to get a new one before the old one actually goes pop.

Combine that with stuff like easy wall mounting, not really possible with a CRT, and you have a consumer pressure to improve their quality and similar.

Wheareas lightbulbs are just lightbulbs, and the meddling Govt/EU bureacrats are telling me I can't buy the bulbs I'm quite happy with, etc etc.

All of the above is true, though I find a poor-quality digital picture (of which there are a depressingly large number of examples) more watchable on CRT than LCD.

The CRT television set is off the shelves because of decisions from the manufacturers. The incandescent light bulb is off the shelves because of a decision from the regulators. From the customer's point of view, both markets are experiencing a reduction in choice, and that reduction in choice is (in part) from reasons external to the customers.

But no-one is seriously complaining about the death of the cathode ray. Is that because it's the operation of the "invisible hand" as opposed to the very visible hand of the regulators?

Anyway, here's the DW News report on the Heatball.

"People" don't resent any such thing. You should not dignify such childish beings with the name people.

Yes, I realise that it's counter productive not to take into account such bloody-minded attitudes. But lets not pretend it's a normal, or morally neutral attitude.

Heh. Economists look at the world as it is, not as we'd like it to be. People do behave that way. It's not the majority, but it's a significant number.

Resenting authority and nanny-knows-best approaches are normally something we tend to encourage. We forget this when they're resenting being told to do something we like. So we need to represent things in a way that doesn't cause resentment.

Well as an Engineer that description of economists is news to me!

I don't see that I was doing anything other than looking at the world as it is. I recognise the need to present things in a way that's not going to cause problematic levels of resistance.

Perhaps we need to ignore the problematic nature of certain people when discussing how to work round them. Because, yeah, maybe these discussions don't occur in a vacuum with only decent enlightened people present.

Personally I value informed scepticism. I value enquiring minds who question authority. I just don't like knee-jerk resentment of authority, or people who witlessly moan about the nanny state.

This is why I'm a supporter of politicians and not myself a politician.

EU lightbulb ban: a bad law made to be broken?

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