Answer: 'cause you’ve been living right. Keep up the good work!
CSA, thankfully, I don’t sweat this kind of thing. I just know, having taken Macroeconomics and Microeconomics, how supply and demand works.
Making ecological choices is a pleasure, not a chore, at least for me. There are plenty of ways to do good things without creating an undue hardship, and if doing something good for the earth creates stress, I just don’t do it. I am not some tree-hugging extremist. I don’t try to live my life like those who no longer use deodorant, launder their clothes, or shower. I just try to do little things that require minimal effort.
Just yesterday, I took my own reusable grocery bags to the store for the first time. Taking them solves the problem of what to do with all the plastic grocery bags I used to bring home, and taking the bags to the store was pretty darn easy.
For many of us, making the ecological choice is a win/win scenario. Why would I want to spend more on fuel than I absolutely have to? Also, as a single man with no kids, buying a large SUV for needs I have once or twice a year would be a poor economic choice.
If you want to make poor economic choices, that is your right. It’s still a free country. I just want people to know that this particular choice has economic consequences for all of us, and if you want to buy a large SUV just to symbolically flip the bird to all the environmentalists out there, that is also your freedom.
First, if you dispose of your CFLs properly, there will be no problem. Second, you should still be able to find halogen bulbs for a long time to come. They are a great substitute for incandescent bulbs in applications where you don’t want to use CFLs.
Since there seem to be a lot of rumors about CFLs these days:
I have always liked the scene from “No Time for Sergeants” where Will Stockdale, a country bumpkin from rural Georgia is being examined by an army psychologist. The psychologist says something like “I would rather live in the worst pigstye in Alabama than live in your home town in Georgia”. Stockdale doesn’t react. The psychologist then says, “I just insulted yor state and where you live. Doesn’t than make you mad?” Stockdale replies “No sir. I figure where you want to live is your own business”.
Well, I figure what a person wants to drive is his or her own business.
First, if you dispose of your CFLs properly, there will be no problem
Great news! For people who never break anything…ever. 
I think you’ve been lucky, CSA. My sister’s Caravan needed major repairs. I guess you could call them “maintenance” since they seem to be required routinely.
Then again, my sister and brother-in-law don’t take very good care of their vehicles, so you could chalk it up to good maintenance habits. I bet her head gasket gave out with the original coolant in the engine.
Thank you for bringing that up, Mean Joe. Thinking you have to freak out because of a broken CFL happens to be one of the rumors I was speaking of.
Breaking a CFL isn’t a big deal. Just don’t lick the broken glass and make sure to take some basic precautions. If you don’t believe me, click the first link.
Manufacturers have been reducing the amount of mercury in CFLs to address this very problem, thanks (in part) to Wal-Mart.
There are going to be countless millions of CFLs out there. Do you really think that more than a small portion of those will be brought to a hazardous waste facility?
Do you really suggest that having countless millions of bulbs out there each containing a small amount of a toxic material is preferable to having them all be nontoxic bulbs? How is that environmentally “sound” again?
Soon enough CFLs will likely be phased out in favor of LEDs as the price continues to drop. LEDs being more efficient, brighter, and even longer lasting. No mercury, but I suppose traces of gallium, arsenic, antimony, and whatever else they ‘dope’ the diodes with to make them work… oh well.
MB, yes, I think more than a small portion of CFLs will be disposed of properly. Most of us who are most likely to use CFLs happen to care about the environment. Those of us who don’t care about the environment are not likely to buy CFLs in the first place.
I am morally opposed to Idiots but it doesn’t stop them.
I’m not so sure. For many (maybe even most) people, CFLs are probably purchased for their effect in lowering your electric bill, secondly for their longevity (at least if you buy a quality one and not a cheapie), and a distant third because people think they’re “being green”, pretty much as an afterthought. “Hey, I’m going to save money! Oh… and I think it’s ‘green’ too.”
The bulbs are marketed as “green”, sure, but mostly are marketed as using significantly less energy and lasting thousands of hours.
If you could just chuck it in your recycle bin with the cans and bottles, people would recycle them, but mostly when something no longer works or people get something newer and shinier, they just want to be rid of the old, offending item as easily and quickly as they can—into the trash. Add to that there being no clear way/place/method to conveniently recycle them for most, and people will just chuck them in the trash and let someone else deal with the problem. It’s the “human way.”
Well, like you said, soon LEDs will replace CFLs, and I haven’t had a single LED burn out yet. All of my flashlights have had LED bulbs for more than five years, and I switched my Christmas lights over to LEDs a couple years ago. The Christmas light LED bulbs don’t even come out on the string I bought. In the meantime, I will continue to use CFLs and dispose of them properly.
I am curious. Have any of you here ever had an LED bulb burn out?
Yes, Whitey; we have LED bulbs fail, but the 3 strings of Christmas lights I have had to replace (one was warranty) were so cheap that it was more economical overall than climbing on the roof, Chevy Chase style (Christmas Vacation) and constantly replacing incandescent bulbs.
We gave away all our regular incandescent Christmas lights and also have the whole house converted to CFLs until LEDs are competitive.
My only gripe is the material waste by having to throw away the whole string.
The moral opposition to anything without context is invalid in my opinion. I am not opposed to killing animals for food and warmth and I am not opposed to owning an suv to go off road, tow and carry stuff. Without context, I would have a hard time talking about morality and not be a hypocrite.
Bumper sticker…"I believe in free speech, how else would we know who the ‘idiots’ are ? "
It’s interesting that you would derive pleasure from passing Prius drivers, especially since the Prius driver probably isn’t in a race. If you pass one of these in a real race http://automobiles.honda.com/cr-z/ , not simply driving down the highway, that would be impressive.
Instead of pretending you are in a race with Prius drivers, you could try some sildenafil citrate instead.
This isse has to do with “political correctness” rather than any real, substantive reasons for denigrating SUV’s.
I’m not just morally opposed to SUVs for ordinary passemger car use; I’m also opposed to them for being far LESS roomy and versatile that the minivans. Lastly, what is the REAL gas mileage of the two choices as measured by Consumer Reports?
I don’t view it as necessarily hypocritical.
If I buy a minivan and don’t need that much space, then yes, it is.
However, if I use that much more space, then it isn’t necessarily hypocritical - because if you needed just the amount of space in an SUV, you have a choice to go for a more efficient vehicle with just as much space - but I challenge you to find a vehicle with as much space as a minivan that is just as efficient as one.
The problem is the family of 3 running around in a mostly empty minivan criticizing SUVs - they’re no better in that case…