What a shame, that other Americans have been convinced by endless, mindless Republican recitations of the so-called evils of government and the value of "freedom", which is supposedly in opposition to government action. The harm those zealots and greedy individuals have done is incalculable, and is quite dangerous for our country and the world.

amen

Hardly surprising about the light bulb poll...

Americans choose to buy ordinary light bulbs around 9 times out of 10.
Banning what Americans want gives the supposed savings - no point in banning an impopular product!

If new LED lights -or improved CFLs- are good,
people will buy them - no need to ban ordinary light bulbs (little point).
If they are not good, people will not buy them - no need to ban ordinary light bulbs (no point).
The arrival of the transistor didn't mean that more energy using radio tubes had to be banned... they were bought less anyway.

All lights have their advantages
The ordinary simple light bulb has for many people a pleasing appearance, it responds quickly with bright broad spectrum light, is easy to use with dimmers and other equipment, can come in small sizes, and has safely been used for over 100 years.

100 W+ equivalent brightness is a particular issue - difficult and expensive with both fluorescents and LEDS - yet such incandescent bulbs are first in line for banning 2012!

Energy?
Since when does America need to save on electricity?
There is no energy shortage, there are plenty of local energy sources, Middle East oil is not used for electricity generation.
Consumers - not politicians - pay for the energy used.
Certainly it is good to let people know how they can save energy and money - but why force them to do it?


Emissions?
OK: Does a light bulb give out any gases?
Power stations might not either:
In Washington state practically all electricity is emission-free, while around half of it is in states like New York and California.
Why should emission-free Seattle, New York and Los Angeles households be denied the use of lighting they obviously want to use?
Low emission households will increase everywhere, since emissions will be reduced anyway through the planned use of coal/gas processing technology or energy substitution.

Also, the savings amounts can be questioned for many reasons:
For a referenced list of reasons against light bulb bans, see
http://www.ceolas.net/#li1x onwards

I agree with ecochick, I think people are tired of being forced to do things by our government.

The question was deceptive. Of course no American wants the government telling them what to use, but that's not what they're doing. They are merely enforcing a new standard of efficiency on lightbulbs in general. If companies can innovate new incandescent bulbs that meet the levels (and some are posed to do so), we may very well continue to have incandescent bulbs. It's misrepresentations like this that create confusion about the issues.

Indeed. We have enough government interference in our lives. Besides the whole CFL thing is a scam. At least in the North. (We use the heat of an incandescent to heat our homes, which is needed some 8 months of the year. In the summmer, the days are long, so little light is used...) Maybe it makes sense in Cah-lih-for-niah - but the Gubernator forgot the rest of the world...
Besides, it is keeping newer, better technologies from coming to the fore, like LED's for example.

Incandescents also have a number of uses, to which CFL's cannot be put.

This is not to say that CFL's or fluorescents themselves do not have a role in lighting. They do. Each product to its own niche!

I'm pretty bullish on LEDs. Incandescent bulbs aren't very useful for heating, though. Heat rises, and most bulbs are mounted too high to make a difference to the people below.

Where are you that you use CFLs to heat your home? You just say "the North." It seems to me that there *has* to be more efficient ways to heat your home than lightbulbs. Here in New England many people aren't even aware that lightbulbs give off significant amounts of heat.

I give Home Energy Seminars and I find that there are a LOT of misconceptions about CFLs out there, especially from people who listen to fear-mongering and from people who tried them years ago and are not aware of the great improvements that have been made in recent years.

Many people are also just plain stubborn and won't try new things unless they don't have an option.

The law also isn't that they will *only* sell CFLs, but rather that lightbulbs have to have a certain level of efficiency, which leaves room for other options.

Alicia
GreenLifestyleConsulting.com

I agree that the idea lightbulbs provide any meaningful heat for homes is a poor argument for their use. Bulbs are optimized for producing light, not heat. They are rarely mounted in a way that the small amount of warmth they produce is useful. Light fixtures aren't space heaters.