Friday, September 14, 2012
Surprising Support for Incandescents to Remain Available in the European Union
While looking through online reporting about the EU ban, I made a rather surprising discovery.
Surprising, because these two "Green" politician signatories were among the strongest supporters of the EU regulations as I also found in previous communications with both of them (the story of how the EU banned the bulb, http://ceolas.net/#euban).
From former Green MEP (now member of UK Parliament) Caroline Lucas site, original document, copy embedded below.
Note the request that incandescents might remain available in pharmacies for those with special medical needs (rather like California marijuana medical need laws)
"Hey I really do suffer with the light from fluorescents and LEDs... "
Given their reaction to the current industrial incandescent workaround (incandescents for industrial use being available to domestic users), the European Commission is probably going to give a rather muted welcome to possible medical workarounds.
That is of course not to say that light sensitivity sufferers are not worthy of consideration and respect, but when was "consideration" or "respect" ever words found in the Brussels Eurocrat Companion Dictionary of Employment.
How Regulations are Wrongly Justified
14 points, referenced:
Includes why the overall society savings aren't there, and even if they were, why alternative policies are better, including alternative policies that target light bulbs.
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6 comments:
Great little baby steps there, but surrealistically absurd that one should have to get the safe alternative in the pharmacy (!) because an undemocratic federation has mandated that all home lamps be replaced by toxic alternatives!
It's the equivalent of banning water for drinking purposes and mandating that everyone buys soft drinks instead, and then having to prove you are allergic to both sugar and sweeteners to get a prescription for plain drinking water - for a lot more money than the original tap water costs...
Even Kafka would not have been able to think of something so bizarre.
I'm sure I'm going to wake up soon and go "Wow, that was a really weird dream!"
Right!
And by the way,
re "equivalent of banning water for drinking purposes and mandating that everyone buys soft drinks instead"
Pretty well what I saw in Brazil:
The global Cola drink types were cheaper (?kept cheaper) than the bottled water that the slum dwellers otherwise needed to drink for safety, so many kids had pretty bad teeth
Also the potent alcohol Cachaça as sold in plastic bags was cheaper than the milk equally sold in such plastic bags in local stores.
I had no idea!
I should really stop being surprised when reality surpasses even the most extreme examples I can imagine... over and over again.
A note on that, as someone said to me, bottled spring water is often more expensive anyway.. but in this case it was already cheap "mains" type drinkable water.
Also, the Cola, like the Cachaca alcohol in sealed bags, was generally available at the low prices in ordinary stores and tobacconist type places, not just in some slum shops.
Not quite your "Systembolaget" ;-) (Swedish government controlled sale of liquor)
Might add, Brazil a lovely and interesting country, whatever about a couple of unusual pricing practices from an outsider's perspective.
Do those politicians still support the ban?
It seems the very people they say they care about are still protesting.
The replacement (halogen) incandescents that were supposed to available will be outlawed in the EU in a few years.
(Anonymous)
Actually one of them emailed me about the regulations at the time, specifically noting that for those concerned, similar Halogens would still be allowed in future.
So, even politicians on the relevant committee were not made aware - or bothered to check - that they will also be banned on the minimum class "B" requirement 2016.
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