Don't get me wrong. I'm all for protecting the world we live in. I hate littering, destruction of wildlife without any kind of purpose, etc. However, I think this whole "going green" thing is going too far.
I was fine with all of the organic products popping up on the shelves. (However one of my good friends is highly allergic to nickel, so if there's a move to change everything to organic, she's sunk. Anything grown from the ground, essentially, causes her to start breaking out in horrible hives and violently vomit...but that's another blog all together.)
I'm fine with converving energy. BANNNG normal incandescent light bulbs for fluorescent ones is absolutely crazy, though, which is exacly is being moved to happen, in California at least.
Sure, they cost about $4. Sure, they save about $180 dollars a year in electric costs, unless you break one and have to shell out $2,000 dollars for cleanup of the hazardous mercury. One woman in Maine broke a lightbulb and had to have Maine's Department of Environment Protection come in. They found 6 times the "safe" level of mercury in the room it broke! With the savings of $180 per year, it'll take the poor woman about 11 years to recoup her losses, just to try and "go green". And why? Because Al Gore says so? Don't environmentalists ususally want hazardous materials OUT of our homes instead of in every room?
The Maine Department of Environmental Protection actually says on their website, after a lengthy and complicated (not to mention nerve-wracking) clean-up process if a fluorescent light bulb breaks:
"Hope that you did a good enough cleanup so that you, your family and pets aren’t poisoned by any mercury inadvertently dispersed or missed."
in the February 26 Boston Globe, it reads:
"If a compact fluorescent breaks, get children and pets out of the room. Ventilate the room. Never use a vacuum, even on a rug, to clean up a broken compact fluorescent lamps. Instead, use stiff paper such as index cards and tape to pick up pieces, and then wipe the area with a wet wipe or damp paper towel. If there are young children or pregnant woman in the house, consider cutting out the piece of carpet where the lamp broke as a precaution. Place the shards and cleanup debris in a glass jar with a screw top and remove the jar from the house."
Seriously?? All to lessen a "carbon footprint". If the claim is that incandescent bulbs are causing global warming, all I see is tripe.
I had no idea that flourescent light bulbs contained mercury. It's true, changing light bulbs is kind of pushing the whole going green thing over the edge...
What we need to do is realize when we really need to turn on our lights and when not to. The only reason companies put "green" or "all natural" on it is so that people stop asking questions about whats REALLY in the stuff we buy. People are becoming more educated about their surroundings as we fall further into debt and are leaving a damaging mark on our planet. What the government is trying to do is pacify the masses so that consumption doesn't go down. The government and corporations are trying to say, " Consume, don't think, consume don't think, it's good for you, it's in a green bottle, just buy, don't think, just buy and use, then buy more "
And the biggest contribution Gore will ever make other than hitting late mid-life crisis and making a documentary is when he stops converting Oxygen to Carbon Dioxide and passes on. It took alot to create all those DvDs... make all the little kids in public school watch it on their televisions... travel by plane around the country to promote it... and then he'll go back to his house with his giant screen elecricity eating t.v. and his non-florescent light bulbs on in all like twenty rooms and count up the cash he's making on speaking engagements.
Sorry if I offended you.... I just think he is the biggest joke ever....
Agreed. His pool alone costs $500/month to heat. I'd like to calculate his "carbon footprint".