Regulation, in my life, has usually been a ratchet. A mandate might be tightened, a tax might be raised, another “green technology” can be forced… but I’ve almost never seen the opposite.
I’ve never seen taxes go down. I’ve never seen an EPA regulation lighten up. I’ve never seen a new car with fewer mandatory safety features and alarms. I’ve made personal choices that gave me more freedom (vote with your feet!) but I’ve rarely seen the noose loosen generally.
Which brings me to lightbulbs. I like efficient lighting where it makes sense. Where it makes sense, I’d already gone fluorescent. Why wouldn’t I? I’m all about efficiency and living cheap.
But centralized bureaucracy cannot abide “where it makes sense”. Rules are applied everywhere, all at once, with a sledge, by people who haven’t got a fucking clue. Examples abound: A dude in a swamp in Michigan has a low flow toilet because water is rare in Phoenix. My truck’s seat belt alarm goes off, when I’m driving firewood across my lawn. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Incandescent bulbs are theoretically inefficient. You know what their waste product is? Heat! You know what the temperature was this February? -42 Fahrenheit.
Repeat the concept just to enjoy the irony. There are EPA regulations on light bulbs that reduce “waste” heat in conditions of negative forty-two Fahrenheit.
Most humans have never ever experienced air that’s seventy four degrees colder than the freezing point of water. If you haven’t done it, you don’t know. It’s colder than you can imagine. It makes your lungs hurt. Machines break and livestock may die. Fluids freeze, plastics snap, you can’t touch metal, batteries give up, and you tiptoe around on the edge of destruction. A bit of heat from a lightbulb can make or break a situation. It can be a miracle and a joy.
When I’m out in my garage trying to warm up an ATV so I can plow the driveway… excess heat is very handy. I sometimes hang a spare pare of gloves near a bulb; so I can switch to the second set as the carbs warm up. I shuffle batteries to keep ’em near lights if I happen to be using the lights anyway. I flip on high beams to keep ice off the lenses. I capture the resource of heat. (I’ll also arrange shit near idling engines, aim engine exhaust at frozen hoses, and harvest virtually anything that’s producing “waste” heat… because it’s heat!)
Especially in my chicken coop. I’m trying to keep it warm enough that the chickens don’t die. I don’t care if a bulb puts a few spare BTUs into the coop… it’s a good thing. But NOOOOOOOO. Some douchebag in D.C. who’s never hammered ice out of a chicken waterer with numb fingers and a screwdriver thinks they know better. I don’t give a fuck about saving $4 annually in electricity at the cost of $300 in dead hens. Stumbling around pitchforks and hay bales in the dim gloom of a fluorescent that can’t quite do the job is a special piece of hell too. Also, the damn things cost much more than incandescents and they don’t hold up nearly as well as they should.
The world is bigger than regulators imagine. Captain Dunning-Kruger, regulator extraordinaire, thinks he knows better than me. He’s wrong. I’m actually doing things instead of just pretending; I know what he doesn’t. For example, there’s no such thing as “too much waste heat” on a lightbulb in my location (especially outbuildings).
I bitch about it from time to time (a quick search indicates I ranted in 2010, 2011, and 2019) but the war was lost; we never win and they never give up. Regulators won’t stop mismanaging things until I’m squatting on the floor of a mud hut praying the self driving car delivers my allotted daily vegan food packet and 100% income tax bill. The slow crawl to dystopia gets to ya’.
But then I read this:
Holy shit! This is what winning looks like.
Note: it’s such a small and easy freedom. So easy! Just step out of the way and let people make a choice that’s right for them. It’s not a big deal. It’s not a bloody revolution. There are no guns blazing, Braveheart isn’t screaming “FREEEEEEDOM”, and it’s not like I’m stopping anyone from buying LEDs. Winning is just the priceless feeling of a simple little courtesy to me. Someone in a suit is being clipped. He or she has to show the humility to let me buy whatever tool is best for my specific needs. I can’t stop smiling.
Keep in mind, I don’t hate LEDs. I have lots of them. I just hate being forced to use them in stupid situations. Sloppy old incandescents rock for icy tool sheds and cold chicken coops. I have very good and logical reasons for my preferences. It’s too nuanced for a dude in a suit in another time zone to understand so they should butt out.
The election of 2016 moved the Overton Window in more ways than one. Now I’ve seen regulations lessen… even just a bit. It can be done. I’m seeing it happen. There is hope. Life doesn’t have to be a boot standing on a human face forever. It can be a wide selection at the hardware store. All hail diversity overcoming the regulators! I salute a world where LEDs and incandescents live in peace and harmony side by side.
I like winning. It feels good.