I don’t think our new Environment Minister has thought his cunning plan through
Having a member of a Green Party in Government would be an anathema in some countries but we have one here. Not only is he a member of the Green Party but he is also the Minister for the Environment. His tenure so far has been largely positive but he has proposed and enacted a directive that will affect every person in the country. But first a brief introduction as to how one of his policies will affect every single person in the state.
December in Ireland is when the Minister for Finance announces the countries budget for the forthcoming calender year. Like any other democratic country this consists of tax cuts/increases, increased/decreased social welfare payments and on and on. This year for Ireland could be considered our first ever “Green Budget.” Our Environment minister ended up having some say into incorporating environmental matters into our everyday lives. Namely by way of our wallets (or purses!)
Many of the “Green” aspects of the budget for 2008 are both admirable and noble and also something that few of us can disagree with. You have a car that pollutes more? Then you pay more for motor tax. It makes sense. But there was one aspect to our latest annual budget that really had me thinking and that was the ban on the plain and ordinary incandescent light bulb.
Announced in our countries annual budget was a directive that in 2009 all houses and businesses in Ireland will have to use energy saving lightbulbs. As a result the average household in Ireland will make considerable savings in their energy bills. But that’s not the full story.
CFL energy saving lightbulbs are a largely unknown entity. In the U.K. there have been two separate studies that seem to link them with health risks. (The U.K. are planning to adopt a similar policy in 2011.) But are there any risks?
The first was a study that claims that the flickering of CFL bulbs could cause migraine attacks. How far that claim goes, I’m not so sure but it does have some plausability. However the second studies results announced yesterday seem more plausible.
Either way we are going to find out soon.
Whatever about studies into possible risks, there is one major risk in using CFL bulbs to begin with. CFL bulbs (as well as fluorescent tubes) contain small amounts of mercury which as you probably know is a controlled hazardous substance. At the risk of sounding sensationalist, mercury is quite toxic and poisonous and can find its way into our food chain quite often through seafood.
The consumption of fish is by far the most significant source of ingestion-related mercury exposure in humans, although plants and livestock also contain mercury due to bioaccumulation of mercury from soil, water and atmosphere, and due to biomagnification by ingesting other mercury-containing organisms. - Wikipedia
While I’m being sensationalist I may as well be cynical because the new directive requests that expired CFL bulbs be returned to a vendor when purchasing a replacement. I wonder how many of them will end up in landfills? Our local landfill, which is also being used by vast swathes of Cork County, happens to be right beside the Blackwater River! Regardless, the Environmental Protection Agency in the U.S. has specific details on what to do if a CFL or fluorescent tube happens to break. Information on the Irish EPAs site is sadly lacking although it is a rather attractive site.
I’m all in favour of being environmentally friendly and anthing that will save us money in the long run can’t be a bad thing.
Can it?
Adopting green policies and radical changes just for the sake of it and without considering long term effects to me is folly. Options should be explored, tested and decided upon. Not chosen because it happens to be the latest trend and will boost the countries image in a knee jerk reaction to a potential energy crisis. After all, they are supposed to be trying to reduce the enormous amounts of money that the health service is consuming and not adding to the waiting lists as a result of policies that were hastily introduced for the sake of it.
Keep this in mind. The U.K. are planning to introduce similar measures but they are actually funding research into any possible effects. They have a tentative date not one that is set in stone. But then again embarassing governmental u-turns seem to be the rules de jour for this countries incumbant leadership.
Update – As if on cue, the BBC have published an article this morning warning of the dangers of disposing of CFLs.
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I hate the way they take the whole ‘green’ thing and use it as en excuse to bum up taxes. they could subsidise electric cars and wind turbines but that would cost them money.
those CFL lights are teh suck – we used to have them in like 96 and they were awful. even LED’s are better
Interesting that you mentioned LEDs because it looks like they finally might be starting to hit the big time. Production costs are getting much lower which will make them much more affordable.
And of course they use even less energy than the CFLs.
We had the same scaremongering about smokeless coal in the early 1990′s. It is utterly rubbish and spun by people who have built a career trying to oppose environmental measures.
Schools use CFL bulbs all the time and there’s no problem. Mercury is something that needs to be dealt with, but its nothing compared to the damage being done to people by the production of energy using fossil fuels.
Hi Andrew,
Thank you for the comment
It’s a good point about smokeless fuel. Just because you can’t see the pollution doesn’t mean that is’s there.
CFLs have been in use for years and I remember back in 1995 begging for my grant in County Hall in Cork that all the bulbs there were CFL’s. And within arms reach too.
The problem is to do with what is emmitted from them whem they are alight. There seems to be a lot of side effects that no one even considered.
Luckily there will be a full consultation to deal with such issues. If detractors think that certain issues aren’t being dealt with, or that the consultation is a white wash, then by all means attack the plan. But simple ranting on about how the sky is going to fall in does not bode well for how Ireland will react to future environmental policy.
Hi Andrew,
I was glad to hear that there will be a consultation about the proposal. I’m all in favour of protecting the environment especially if it will save us money in the long term
I’m not trying to detract from the initiave but a lot of things here never go according to plan for example the governments waste initiaves resulted in illegal dumps springing up all over the country.
On paper the lightbulb propasal looks sound, it will save us money in the long term but the long term effects of exposure to such lighting are only now coming to the fore.
Back when I was in secondary school, the first thing our geography teacher would do when he entered the classroom was turn off the flourescent lights as he claimed that they aggravated his ezcema. In the end he died a year after we finished our leaving cert as a result of skin cancer.
Now I’m not claiming for one minute that flourescent tubes or CFLs cause skin cancer, don’t get me wrong on that one but there are recent studies that link CFL’s and tubes to aggravation of sensitive skin. Certainly my geography teacher seemed to think something similar 13 years ago.
Hopefully the consultation process will take these studies seriously which I am sure they will. But there are plenty of unknowns that need to be clarified.
In fairness Robert, that’s fairly poor. Whether intentional or not, you are linking CFLs with skin cancer, otherwise you wouldn’t have mentioned it. As for the mercury point, Snopes deals with it best: http://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/cfl.asp
Hi Pidge,
My intention was to make a link between skin disorders such as eczema and dermatitis. The point I was trying to get across by mentioning my former geography teacher was that the flourescent lighting aggravated his condition.
As I mentioned in my entry, I’m being sensationalist and cynical as far as the disposal or breaking of them goes. From the CFLs that we already have here I would imagine the chances of breaking one would be very small as they are a lot tougher than ordinary bulbs.
It is more the potential health issues that concern me the most.
Incidentially one of the CFLs that we have lighting the staircase has been in place for at least 10 years. Certainly there is no doubting the long life of them.