I'm going to start a green collar business that works like Avon.
Edited By Siteowner
Great idea! Heh. Be sure your MLM includes lots of greenwashing.
Okay, so, get a grant for CF bulbs and create a downline for giving them away. Show 95% penetration and get another grant. Keep about 15% for "administration."
Call me to design up the logo and other branding artifacts you'll need.
I don't quite see a parallel between the working poor and german engineers. In Germany three times as many people died in labor camps working on the V2 than died being hit by a V2.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-2_rocket
The link is to wiki, but my Space Age Solar System Prof said the same thing.
It was very encouraging to me when you said there was good industry available for the green revolution. If given a chance and left alone, the market will figure things out. Are grants really a good idea? Any gov't involvement drives away efficiency--just look at healthcare. I don't see grants as sustainable. My capitalist approach is to invest in mercury, since they'll need a lot of it for these mandated bulbs
Don't try to tell me that CF Bulbs have mercury we both know thats bunk.
Edited By Siteowner
Ummm...do you have a resource for mercury free cf bulbs? I'd be very interested. A huge chunk of time I've spent with San Diego's hazardous materials response team was dealing with mercury. If someone busted one on the ground, we'd have to respond the whole team to clean it up---until we couldn't detect any more mercury. (there's about 5 milligrams of mercury in each cf tube, and my understanding is they won't work without it)
OK let me correct myself. Some have as little as 2 mg mercury. The Forest Foundation claimed to sell bulbs awhile ago that were mercury free. They were not; they were lead free and admitted to getting their heavy metals confused...It's also possible that there would be a net decrease in mercury contamination using cfl's, since hydrocarbon use produces some mercury, and you'd be using less hydrocarbon while saving electricity. So, I'm going with my plan to invest in mercury
I am curious as to how the Forest Foundation could make such an error. It makes me think it possible that other such errors have occurred in the diagnosis of green washed items. The most likely answer is that they have.
Matt, the Forest Foundation clearly simply reported what someone wanted them to believe. Instead of admitting they were gullible, they apologized for confusing their heavy metals. Marketing wins another round, and we all lose.
Steve, yes, 48 tons of mercury are released annually in the US from coal-fired power plants. Replacing 100w standard bulbs with 23w CFs results in a net decrease of mercury in the atmosphere (and food chain).
LED lamps are of course better still.
It'd be great if mercury became valuable enough that recovering it from coal plant's stacks was economical.
Commenting by HaloScan
