Like Frank Beckman and Nolan Finley, I’ve been buying extra incandescent lightbulbs in anticipation of the day that I won’t be able to buy them at retail establishments.
Isn’t it remarkable that it’s come to this? A simple, cheap, and tremendously useful product will disappear from retail shelves–not because there’s a shortage of an essential ingredient, or because someone has come up with a vastly superior replacement (think of the compact disk versus the 8-track tape), or even because someone got injured from the product and forced the industry to shovel an enormous payout his way.
Instead, a useful, economical product is going away because busybodies (Greenies) and politicians have banded together to say “No, you can’t buy that.”
There’s a timetable for when the familiar bulbs will disappear, though I suspect they will disappear faster than the law calls for.
Whenever I go to Home Depot, it seems that the amount of space given over to CFLs is larger and the amount of space for incandescent bulbs is smaller. In its advertising Big Orange puts on an earnest effort to be seen as Big Green, perhaps to burnish its credentials with the “green” lobby.
But makes me wonder …. With all the effort that has been invested in making the transition over to CFLs, will Home Depot and its retail competitors be an obstacle to overturning the ban on incandescents? Most retailers, after all, are in the business of selling product, not defending consumer freedoms against intrusions from Big Green and Big Government. I predict that at least one major retailer will come out against repealing the ban, should the new Congress actually hold hearings on the subject. Doing so would make it look good both to government (which draws up the rules of commerce) and to greenies (who, like many small but vocal groups, tend to get their way).
Besides, retailers such as Home Depot can still make a buck by selling a product the public doesn’t want, if government gives us no other choice.
(This commentary was published in the Detroit News: http://apps.detnews.com/apps/blogs/watercooler/index.php?blogid=1302. I discussed it as a guest on WJR-AM’s Frank Beckman show a few days later.)