Santa, His Elves and Reindeer Will Die Unless You Use Fluorescent Light Bulbs

IMAO The liberals are using the government to indoctrinate our children with lies and bullying (peer pressure via political correctness) to cultivate them into liberals.

I think this demonstrates how manipulative the liberals are being trying to force their agenda by brainwashing our kids with lies, hatred and fear.

According to some liberals: Santa, His Elves and Reindeer Will Die Unless You Use Fluorescent Light Bulbs

Excerpt:

Greg Nickels, the liberal Mayor of Seattle, Washington, used this year’s Christmas tree lighting ceremony to scare kids. (That’s your liberals, folks — scaring kids.) He told the kids of Seattle that Santa Claus, his elves, and all of his reindeer would die — by drowning — unless the kids used energy-efficient light bulbs to stop the North Pole from melting.

Source (membership $ required)
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_113007/content/01125101.LogIn.html

Collaborating free source.

SAVING SANTA: GO GREEN

A grim Christmas message for kids from the mayor of Seattle. Greg Nickels told small children he’s launching “Operation Save Santa” to protect the big guy from global warming. At a Christmas tree lighting, Nickels warned the kids they had to use energy efficient light bulbs, or climate change could melt the North Pole — and drown Santa, his elves and all his reindeer.

Nickels has been promoting a program that’s distributing low-energy compact fluorescent bulbs. To show just how concerned he was — the mayor wrote a Grinchy letter to Santa — warning him the pole could be ice-free by the year 2030.

The Washington Policy Center cited a study released earlier this month by NASA that found natural, cyclical factors were the likely cause of melting in the arctic.

Source http://www.myfoxdfw.com/myfox/pages/News/Detail?contentId=5080866&version=1&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=TSTY&pageId=3.2.1

More lies and hatred drummed up by the left. The left is using global warming to advance their political agenda and for financial gain. They are indoctrinating our children with dishonest propaganda. They are using lies, fear and hate mongering to cultivate our children into leftists.

I get the idea that almost everyone is trying to take everyone’s words out of context to further an agenda. That goes for both sides of the issue.

Whether we are in a period of global warming or cooling is a matter of looking at the time scale.

It looks like over the next few decades or centuries that it is likely that there will be global warming.

I think it global warming is largely natural, that is only partly accelerated and intensified by man.

The liberals like “Lord” Al Gore are trying to capitalize politically and financially by creating hysteria, fear and bigotry over the global warming issue.

The global warming nuts seem to think it is best to bypass natures cycles of warming and cooling periods and trying to keep a constant global temperature. I think that is a bad idea and would be harmful. It definitely would be harmful financially, it could easily send us back to the Stone Age trying to control the weather.

The global warming and cooling cycles are natural and may be part of a safety valve. Take for instance the build up of methane ice in the world’s oceans, the methane ice slowly builds up over the centuries, it may be necessary that there be a release through an occasional minor global warming. If we don’t allow the minor global warming, it may build up to the point that there is even a much larger catastrophic release. It could be much like overriding the shut off switch on a compressor and locking the safety release valve closed, the result could be a catastrophic release.

I’m in favor of protecting our environment, however I think we should do it reasonably, rationally and very well thought out. Al Gore and his global warming gang, seem to want to act hysterically and much like a Mafia or Hitler organizing a new world order.

Another example, the environmentalist wackos wanted to do everything in their minds they could to protect forests/vegetation at the same time they wanted to build in more remote and undeveloped natural areas. For many decades now we have worked hard to stop all wildlife fires, as a result some species of plants and animals that are dependent on fire are endangered. As a result there is a lot more brush and deadwood in the wildlife areas, so now it is a dangerous tinderbox. It is best to let an occasional fire burn off some of the brush and deadwood so it doesn’t build up, this can also allow the species that are dependent on fire to reproduce and have a habitat. We shouldn’t build in areas that are fire traps, they should be designated wildlife areas or be managed with fire breaks and to minimize the brush and deadwood.

I think it would be best to try to get conservationists and industry to work together. For instance the logging industry could use selective cutting to remove deadwood and undergrowth and too thin the forest. Logging patterns could be modified (to bands) to serve as fire breaks where clearcutting is used.

Since there has been decades of preventing all wildfires, the build up of brush has caused the recent frequency and intensity wildfires. However the environmental wackos are too shallow minded to realize and admit that their regulations and control have made the wildfires worse and the impact on humans worse. Instead they want to blame the wildfires on global warming.

They want to subsidize building and insurance in New Orleans. They don’t seem to understand that building higher and stronger (subsidized) dikes and subsidizing housing and insurance will just make the next hurricane that breaches the dikes have even worse loss of property and life. Instead of fighting nature, we should learn to live and work with it. In the old days some of them were smart enough to raise the ground level, or to put housing on stilts or to move to higher ground, instead they expect the government to subsidize and regulate the dikes higher. So the next time the dikes break, they’ll be a lot more loss of life and property to blame on the government. New Orleans has flooded before, for years experts have warned us that New Orleans was a disaster waiting to happen, it seems no one is listening to the real experts even now, instead they want to listen to self-proclaimed liberal experts.

Another example of how the environmental wackos have been counterproductive is there protests and hysteria against nuclear power. As a result we are more dependent on fossil fuels and the costs and bureaucracy of nuclear power has skyrocketed. It also has resulted in the increase of global warming/greenhouse gases, whereas if we continue to use nuclear power with less manipulation, there would be less greenhouse gases, the nuclear power industry would be safer and cheaper.

Another fallacy that Al Gore and his gang are doing is that they assume everyone that agrees that there is global warming, assume that they agree that man has a major impact and can control it. It would be like assuming that if you urinate in a lake during a rainstorm and the dam breaks, they your urination broke the dam. It may have been a minor factor, however it would’ve made more sense to direct the attention to opening the floodgates before the dam reached structural failure. Opening the floodgates may cause a catastrophe, but it would be a small catastrophe compared to a ruptured dam.

Another false assumption that Al Gore and his global warming gang makes is that global warming is bad. They only talk about the bad things that happen during global warming, the fact is that there also is good things that result from global warming.

The last time there was a significant warming phase was the “Medieval Warm Period” during which society thrived and population soared. On the contrary when there was the “Little Ice Age” populations plunged, starvation and disease and famine soared, society crumbled. It seems to have been a factor in the Black Death.

Instead of trying to fight with nature, we should learn how to try to live with it. That’s something that Al Gore and his global warming nuts should learn. They need to think a little deeper instead of having shallow hysteria.

The liberals often try to portray themselves as against big business, however what they are doing is largely against large US businesses however, however the conditions that they are creating are in favor of destroying national businesses and creating even larger more controlling world/globalized businesses. They are breaking up big national businesses so that even bigger businesses and monopolies can coalesce under a world government.

I think the global warming movement is a scam, it’s a grab for money and power that is hurting the economy and the environment. I find it frightening that so many people so readily and naïvely go along with it to be politically correct.

Actually the earth is cooling. The latest hysteria and controversy is only about the earth’s surface and atmosphere. The earth’s surface and atmosphere may be currently warming, however the planet on the whole, is still cooling. As I said before whether the earth is cooling or warming is partly based on timescale and perspective. Al Gore and his global warming gang only seem to want to talk about their pseudoscience interpretation from only the perspective of earth’s surface and atmosphere because it can be easily manipulated to support their agenda.

Currently the magnetic field seems to be diminishing which could be a sign that the magnetic fields may be about to change. I think they typically swap about every 400,000 years, I think we are way long overdue. During the change the magnetic field will likely weaken and become more turbulent. It will allow more radiation from space to reach the earth, which will cause a noticeable rise in cancer rates. In addition it will allow more of the atmosphere to be stripped from the planet by solar wind. They estimate that it probably will only have a moderate affect on humans. However if and when the core reaches the point that it starts to solidify, the magnetic field will collapse permanently which would result in a loss of our atmosphere, we would become a cold, dry desolate planet, with not much atmosphere much like Mars. Most say that the weakening magnetic field is just a sign that we are heading toward a magnetic field reversal, however it could be a sign that the core is solidifying. A magnetic field reversal could do a lot of harm to civilization, however the core solidifying would be the end of civilization as we know it and probably the extinction of man.

I wouldn’t be so eager to rashly try to reverse global warming, as Al Gore’s global warming movement might accelerate the extinction of man.

Scientists are just starting to understand the earth’s processes. It is immensely more complex then Al Gore and his global warming mob portraying it or even can understand.

Even on a cosmic scale through eons there are cycles. The earth’s atmosphere will almost certainly be stripped away and destroy life as we know it. The earth will also be scorched and possibly consumed by the sun as it starts to die and becomes a red giant.

Of course there always is the wild-card, we could be struck or have a near miss with the comet or some other body from space that could wipe out life as we know it.

Al Gore and his global warming thugs like to spew a lot of lies and rhetoric to incite fear and hate, like claiming that the last century has been the largest release of global warming gases in history. However the Chicxulub impact that happened in Central/South America is estimated to have released over 100 times more greenhouse gases.

There are so many factors to take into account that we are just beginning to understand. We are on a long way away from being able to accurately predict the global climate. Solar flares, earth magnetic field reversals, Sun magnetic field reversals, impact events, Ocean conveyor belts, methane ice releases, ect… just to name a few of the variables that influence global climate.

Al Gore’s and his global warming gang’s claims is a blatant and naïve exploitive con.

If Al Gore and his mob was so concerned about global warming, how come Al Gore and his mob are such a bad polluters wastefull users? It’s really hard to take a hypocrite serious, when they are living in a mansion and probably consuming hundreds or even thousands of times more CO2 than the average citizen.

Eating tofu and setting down your thermostat to 70° is not going to save the environment and is not practical. There are a lot of people that have their thermostat set at 45° to keep the pipes from freezing, some people have no heat at all and this delusional snob tells us that turning their thermostat down to 70 or 68° is going to make a big difference? For many people that would be raising the thermostat.

Perhaps Al Gore can survive off a vegetarian/tofu diet. However people that really work hard and do a lot of physical work or exercise need some serious calories, tofu and a vegetarian diet would be a fatal diet too many people. How many Eskimos have you heard of that live the traditional lifestyle that are vegetarians? None, they largely eat blubber (fat) because they need to calories because it is so cold and they work so hard.

How about things like government regulations on toilets. Now it’s illegal to buy and install a conventional toilet in many places. Now I find myself consuming more water because I’m using a low flow toilet that has to be flushed two to four times so it’s not a sanitary risk. I think the old toilets were more effective, sanitary and some ways more environmentally friendly. The even older toilets were even better in my opinion. Remember the toilet style that was patented by Thomas Crapper; the tank was up high near the ceiling so gravity gave a better assist to the flush, so an excellent flush could be done with less water. I think people didn’t like the looks and sound and it was slightly more expensive, I think there was slightly more splatter because it flushed so violently. I would rather have a little bit of freshwater splatter than to have stagnant dirty toilet water. I suspect even most dogs are smart enough prefer the older toilets.

How about things like low flow shower heads. Now I feel like there is virga in my shower. The flow is so low and slow that I only have to clean half of my shower, unfortunately some of the soap scum has a tendency to build up on my lower body as the water evaporates away because the flow rate is so pitiful. I find that I am more itchy because I’m less well washed and there is more alkaline/corrosive soap residue.

Do you really think these rich politicians all have low flow toilets and low flow showers? Do you really think they have single low flow shower heads like most of us? Or do you think many of them have those high flow, or multiple shower head showers, or mega deluge shower heads. I find it ironic that one the places in the United States that has some of the greatest need to conserve water and has some of the toughest laws on water consumption and has some of the highest per capita global warming liberal nuts; is the showcase for some of the most extravagant and least environmentally friendly high consumption shower heads. Despite the laws for the common man.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/union…hs18shower.html

Do you really think these liberals living in mansions that are promoting the global warming garbage that have these luxurious shower heads, have the same size water heater as most of us? That shower head would probably empty my hot water tank in 3-4 minutes. How many toilets, showers and baths do you think Al Gore has in his mansion? How many cars do you think Al Gore’s family has? how many of them are gas guzzlers? Do you really think he sets a good example for the common man?

Al Gore doesn’t have a clue about science or what it is like in the real world; he is living in a delusional hypocritical snobbish politically correct fantasy world.

The recent global warming convention was a hypocritical joke, many of the snobbish hypocritical self-appointed experts flying to a convention on private jets, being chauffeured around in private cars or limousines, staying in luxurious suites. Several people estimated that the convention used more power and consumed more greenhouse gases then some small nations.

Al Gore’s ‘Inconvenient Truth’? — A $30,000 Utility Bill
Think Tank Blasts Gore for Hypocrisy, Defenders Call Report a Last Gasp from Warming Skeptics
By JAKE TAPPER
Feb. 26, 2007 —

Back home in Tennessee, safely ensconced in his suburban Nashville home, Vice President Al Gore is no doubt basking in the Oscar awarded to “An Inconvenient Truth,” the documentary he inspired and in which he starred. But a local free-market think tank is trying to make that very home emblematic of what it deems Gore’s environmental hypocrisy.

Armed with Gore’s utility bills for the last two years, the Tennessee Center for Policy Research charged Monday that the gas and electric bills for the former vice president’s 20-room home and pool house devoured nearly 221,000 kilowatt-hours in 2006, more than 20 times the national average of 10,656 kilowatt-hours.

“If this were any other person with $30,000-a-year in utility bills, I wouldn’t care,” says the Center’s 27-year-old president, Drew Johnson. “But he tells other people how to live and he’s not following his own rules.”

Scoffed a former Gore adviser in response: “I think what you’re seeing here is the last gasp of the global warming skeptics. They’ve completely lost the debate on the issue so now they’re just attacking their most effective opponent.”

Kalee Kreider, a spokesperson for the Gores, did not dispute the Center’s figures, taken as they were from public records. But she pointed out that both Al and Tipper Gore work out of their home and she argued that “the bottom line is that every family has a different carbon footprint. And what Vice President Gore has asked is for families to calculate that footprint and take steps to reduce and offset it.”

A carbon footprint is a calculation of the CO2 fossil fuel emissions each person is responsible for, either directly because of his or her transportation and energy consumption or indirectly because of the manufacture and eventual breakdown of products he or she uses. (You can calculate your own carbon footprint on the website http://www.carbonfootprint.com/)

The vice president has done that, Kreider argues, and the family tries to offset that carbon footprint by purchasing their power through the local Green Power Switch program electricity generated through renewable resources such as solar, wind, and methane gas, which create less waste and pollution. “In addition, they are in the midst of installing solar panels on their home, which will enable them to use less power,” Kreider added. “They also use compact fluorescent bulbs and other energy efficiency measures and then they purchase offsets for their carbon emissions to bring their carbon footprint down to zero.”

These efforts did little to impress Johnson. “I appreciate the solar panels,” he said, “but he also has natural gas lanterns in his yard, a heated pool, and an electric gate. While I appreciate that he’s switching out some light bulbs, he is not living the lifestyle that he advocates.”

The Center claims that Nashville Electric Services records show the Gores in 2006 averaged a monthly electricity bill of $1,359 for using 18,414 kilowatt-hours, and $1,461 per month for using 16,200 kilowatt-hours in 2005. During that time, Nashville Gas Company billed the family an average of $536 a month for the main house and $544 for the pool house in 2006, and $640 for the main house and $525 for the pool house in 2005. That averages out to be $29,268 in gas and electric bills for the Gores in 2006, $31,512 in 2005.

The press release from Johnson’s group, an obscure conservative think tank founded by Johnson in 2004 when he was 24, was given splashy attention on the highly-trafficked Drudge Report Monday evening, and former Gore aides saw it as part of a piece, along with an Fox News Channel investigation from earlier this month of Gore’s use of private planes in 2000. Last year, a seemingly amateurish Youtube video mocking the “An Inconvenient Truth” turned out to have been produced by slick Republican public relations firm called DCI, which just happens to have oil giant Exxon as a client.

“Considering that he spends an overwhelming majority of his time advocating on behalf of and trying to affect change on this issue, it’s not surprising that people who have a vested interest in protecting the status quo would go after him,” said the former Gore aide.

Kreider says she’s confident that the Gores’ utility bills will decrease. “They bought an older home and they’re in the process of upgrading the home,” she said. “Unfortunately that means an increase in energy use in order to have an overall decrease in energy use down the road.”

Gore is not the only environmentalist associated with “An Inconvenient Truth” who has come under fire for personal habits — and not all the criticism has come from the Right.

Writing in The Atlantic Monthly in 2004, liberal writer Eric Alterman criticized producer Laurie David for her use of private Gulfstream jets. David, he wrote “reviles the owners of SUVs as terrorist enablers, yet gives herself a pass when it comes to chartering one of the most wasteful uses of fossil-based fuels imaginable.” New Republic writer Gregg Easterbrook followed up, computing that “one cross-country flight in a Gulfstream is the same, in terms of Persian-Gulf dependence and greenhouse-gas emissions, as if she drove a Hummer for an entire year.”

In an interview in 2006, David told ABC News that she was limiting her use of private planes and was flying commercial far more frequently.

Source
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Glob…tory?id=2906888

Compared to:

The 4,000-square-foot house is a model of environmental rectitude.

Geothermal heat pumps located in a central closet circulate water through pipes buried 300 feet deep in the ground where the temperature is a constant 67 degrees; the water heats the house in the winter and cools it in the summer. Systems such as the one in this “eco-friendly” dwelling use about 25% of the electricity that traditional heating and cooling systems utilize.

A 25,000-gallon underground cistern collects rainwater gathered from roof runs; wastewater from sinks, toilets and showers goes into underground purifying tanks and is also funneled into the cistern. The water from the cistern is used to irrigate the landscaping surrounding the four-bedroom home. Plants and flowers native to the high prairie area blend the structure into the surrounding ecosystem.

No, this is not the home of some eccentrically wealthy eco-freak trying to shame his fellow citizens into following the pristineness of his self-righteous example. And no, it is not the wilderness retreat of the Sierra Club or the Natural Resources Defense Council, a haven where tree-huggers plot political strategy.

Source
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=19626

Does that home sound like part of Al Gore’s vision to prevent global warming? The eco-friendly house is actually George W. Bush’s home.

If we could just harness the hot air from our politicians we would have an infinite power source.

Do you really think Al Gore is qualified to give us advice on global warming? I think he has less training on global warming than he does with firearms.

This is an example of some of the problems that is caused by politically correct environmentalists that don’t have a clue what they’re doing, they are creating bureaucracy that is causing problems, hysteria and waste.

$2000 to clean up after one light bulb thanks to liberal bureaucrats.

Fluorescent Bulb Break Creates Costly Hassle
Written by Nick Gosling
Thursday, April 12, 2007
PROSPECT — It was just like any other Tuesday.

Prospect resident Brandy Bridges holds up a newspaper insert promoting the type of CFL (compact fluorescent lamp) bulbs that she says have caused elevated levels of mercury in her home when one broke last month.—STAFF PHOTO BY NICK GOSLINGOn March 13, Brandy Bridges was installing some of the two dozen CFL (compact fluorescent lamp) bulbs she had purchased in an attempt to save money on her energy bill.

One month later, though, Bridges is paying much more than she had ever expected to.

On that Tuesday, Bridges was installing one of the spiral-shaped light bulbs in her 7-year-old daughter’s bedroom. Suddenly, the bulb plummeted to the floor, breaking on the shag carpet.

Bridges, who was wary of the dangers of cleaning up a fluorescent bulb, called The Home Depot where she purchased them. She was told that the bulbs had mercury in them and that she should not vacuum the area where the bulb had broken. Bridges was directed to call the Poison Control hotline.

Poison Control directed her to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Environmental Protection.

Upon reaching the DEP the next day, the agency offered to send a specialist out to Bridges’ house to test the air levels. The specialist arrived soon after the phone conversation and began testing the downstairs, where he found safe levels of mercury — below the state’s limit of 300 ng/m3 (nanograms per cubic meter).

In the daughter’s bedroom, the levels remained well below the 300 mark, except for near the carpet where the bulb broke. There the mercury levels spiked to 1,939 ng/m3. On a bag of toys that bulb fragments had landed on, the levels of mercury were 556 ng/m3.

Bridges was told by the specialist not to clean up the bulb and mercury powder by herself. He recommended the Clean Harbors Environmental Services branch in Hampden.

Clean Harbors gave Bridges a low-ball estimate of $2,000, based on what she described, to clean up the room properly. The work entailed removing anything with levels greater than 300 ng/m3, including the carpeting.

One month later, Bridges’ daughter’s bedroom remains sealed off with plastic “to avoid any dust blowing around” and to keep the family’s pets from going in and out of the room.

Her daughter, Shayley, has to sleep downstairs in a full house that already consists of Bridges’ fiancé, her 71-year-old mother and her handicapped brother.

Today, Bridges is “gathering finances” to pay the $2,000 for the cleaning herself. That won’t cover the cost for new carpeting and other items that will have to be replaced. Her insurance company said it wouldn’t cover the costs because mercury is considered a pollutant, like oil.

One month later, Bridges is still searching for answers. She has contacted staff members from the offices of U.S. Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) to tell them about her situation but has received no response.

She has talked with representatives from the CDC and DEP and spent roughly two to three hours a day over the past several weeks, talking on the phone and in person and contacting local papers to get the word out on what she believes are dangerous light bulbs.

And, she said, she is wondering why the DEP “publicly recanted the statement” it made to an area newspaper, in which DEP officials said it was safe to clean up the CFL bulbs using household materials.

“I’m really upset. They should not change their story just because it does not fit into a good plan for these light bulbs,” said Bridges. “I’m trying my best to keep my family safe and the state just keeps trying to cover it up.”

Officials have said that Bridges has little to worry about and she could easily clean up the bulbs by hand.

State Toxicologist Andrew Smith said it would be unlikely that a person could contract mercury poisoning from the levels of mercury found in Bridges’ daughter’s room.

“In this situation, my understanding, was this 1,900 was the sign reading right at the spot of the floor where the bulb broke,” said Smith. “While 1,900 was certainly considered an elevated reading of mercury vapor, it was a very localized level that I would not expect to result in any sign of mercury exposure.”

Smith said mercury is only dangerous with long-term exposure and in this case the person would have to stay right at the spot of the 1,900 reading or there would have to be elevated levels of mercury vapor in the breathing zone — about 3 feet — above the spill. Mercury also dissipates over time.

The air in the bedroom at the 3-foot level measured between 31 to 49 ng/m3 of mercury, depending on the location.

Smith said a CFL light bulb breaking is not in the same category as when a mercury thermometer breaks.

A typical fluorescent bulb has between 1 and 25 milligrams of mercury with the majority of smaller ones — the size of the bulb that Bridges broke — having about 5 milligrams of mercury. This is about the amount of ink on the tip of a pen.

A typical mercury thermometer has between 500 and 3,000 milligrams of mercury, depending on its size. A mercury thermostat has even more.

“Often you will get high levels in the breathing zone area,” said Smith about a broken thermometer. “High hundreds, if not thousands.”

Smith said Bridges’ call was the first of its kind he’s ever received. He’s received plenty of calls about broken mercury thermometers, old barometers that had broken, even a very old antique Civil War mirror that had a mercury coating on the back.

Many of these situations have had enough mercury to result in “fairly elevated levels in the home” and more care was needed for each situation. But Bridges’ problem “is a whole different ballpark,” said Smith.

Scott Cowger, director of outreach and communications for the DEP, said the DEP’s Web site ( http://www.maine.gov/dep/ ) has guidelines for cleaning up a broken fluorescent bulb.

Cowger said it is important to ventilate the area by opening windows and not to vacuum the area of the broken bulb, which may spread the mercury. While wearing appropriate safety gloves, glasses, coveralls or old clothing and a dust mask, a person can remove the glass pieces and put them in a closed container.

The dust can be cleaned up using either two pieces of stiff paper, a disposal broom and dustpan or a commercial mercury spill kit. Afterward, the area should be patted with the sticky side of tape, according to the DEP Web site.

Cowger said all the items used in cleaning up the spill should be treated as “universal waste” or a household hazardous waste that can be disposed of without hiring professionals. He said that almost every town has a program for recycling or removing universal waste, which includes computers, electronic devices and fluorescent bulbs, at the transfer station.

“We encourage people not to panic if they break a lightbulb,” said Cowger.

Cowger said the instructions on the Web site are the same for if a mercury thermometer breaks. If a person breaks anything bigger than a thermometer, for example a thermostat, Cowger recommends calling a professional to clean up the spill.

The DEP spokesman said, though, it “isn’t necessary to hire professionals at all” for a light bulb. The specialist who responded to Bridges’ broken bulb was trained to respond to chemical spills and to clean up such spills to “appropriate standards.”

As for the dangers of CFL bulbs, Cowger said they are more help than hindrance.

For every CFL bulb a person uses, he or she is preventing mercury emissions and using less energy, said Cowger, but it is still important to educate people that these bulbs do contain a small amount of mercury.

“We’re doing our part and I think using fluorescent bulbs helps reduce that overall mercury burden on the environment, so people shouldn’t be afraid of them, by any means,” he said. “They should be proud to burn those bulbs as a way of lowering our entire mercury burden.”

To Bridges, the DEP’s suggestions for cleaning her rug seem “ridiculous.”

“I don’t think it’s possible to safely clean mercury out of a shag rug with duct tape and paper … I believe their first notion to have it cleaned professionally was correct. They told me to do it this way. Why would they change their stories when the papers got a hold of them?”

Maine’s Public Utilities Commission is rigorously promoting the use of CFL bulbs, as a replacement to incandescent bulbs, through government incentives for both businesses and household consumers.

Nicole Clegg, director of communication for the PUC, said through the Efficiency Maine program, which offers coupons to consumers buying CFLs, over 1 million bulbs have been purchased since the program began in 2002.

Clegg said that number works out to about $46 million in saved energy costs and 194,000 tons of carbon dioxide that has not been pumped into the atmosphere because of the reduced electricity use.

The director said that a CFL uses 50 percent to 80 percent less energy than a traditional incandescent bulb, lasts 10 times longer and is four times as efficient. The incandescent bulb was patented in 1880, so it’s little wonder the technology has gotten better, she said.

“Our goal is to reduce energy or to keep the state of Maine’s energy consumption flat. One of the most cost effective ways is to promote these lights,” Clegg said.

Clegg said that people need to understand that using CFLs keeps more mercury out of the atmosphere and the environment than a normal incandescent bulb. And, if properly cared for, the bulbs “shouldn’t have immediate health risks.”

“If you have concerns about your electricity bill or the environment, changing your light bulb to a CFL is the simplest, easiest thing you can do,” said Clegg.

Bridges still isn’t convinced. She’s worried about her daughter staying in the same house for the next 11 years, potentially having long-term exposure to mercury. She’s worried about the rest of her family’s health.

And she’s worried about “the state downplaying the threat of mercury and not letting people know the dangers coming from one bulb” and “telling everybody to clean it up themselves.”

“I think they are putting people’s safety and health at risk because they know what the financial repercussions are going to be for the consumer,” said Bridges.

For information on cleaning up a broken CFL, go to http://www.maine.gov/dep/.

Source
http://ellsworthmaine.com/site/inde…6&Itemid=31

Isn’t it somewhat ironic, that Al Gore and his global environmentalist warming henchmen are creating hysteria that is causing a sudden rush to use fluorescent light bulbs, which contain mercury, so the next panic will be about the mercury that they encouraged.

It’s the same old story. They create a problem, then they complain about it and blame others. They talk all condescending, and hysterical like they are know it alls like they have all the answers and are superior and it is an emergency, yet when they get their way and screw things all up, they try to blame everyone but themselves.
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(This is from memory, it may not be 100% correct.)

There was a child that came home from school crying to her mother. The mother asked why the child was so upset, the child was upset because the teacher said that our use of plastic is destroying the world. The kids harassed all the students that had plastic bags in their lunchboxes. So the next day the mother sent the child to school with a sandwich wrapped in wax paper and paper bag. So again the child came home depressed and crying because the child was again teased for destroying the world by using paper bags. So the next day the mother went to school to try to resolve the issue. The mother asked if the teacher could offer a solution that would be a “politically correct” method of packing lunch. The teacher could not offer a solution that would meet her own criteria of “politically correct”. The mother asked if the teacher would explain the situation to the students in a way that would resolve the situation that would not promote bigotry and persecution. The teacher refused. The mother asked if a reusable Tupperware container would be acceptable, the teacher responded; “no, it’s plastic”. The mother asked what the teacher did for lunch, the teacher explained that she went out to eat for lunch. There was a large coffee in a Styrofoam and a McDonnell bag on the teacher’s desk. The mother pointed out that isn’t it hypocrisy that the teacher drove her car to lunch, used plastic and paper products. The teacher became angry, still refused to acknowledge the hypocrisy, or offer a solution.

The teacher used the excuse that it was the approved curriculum. The mother tried to complain to the principal, the principal refused to resolve the situation. So the woman went to the press, but the story was too small and politically incorrect for them (didn’t fit their liberal agenda).

To me the situation was unreasonable conceited snobbish classism using environmentalism as a guise. It seems that the rich kids and the poor kids did most of the teasing, because they ate school lunches, the rich kids could afford the school lunches, the poor kids qualified for free lunches. So the middle class and kids on special diets were the targets of the environmental bullying.

It’s as if they don’t care about the welfare of the students or the logic of what they are teaching, they only care about advancing their agenda (political correctness and control).

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Allegedly: There was an instance of a father took the local education authority to court over the fact that they would only show Al Gore’s film and nothing to counter act it or balance the debate. The father won.

But instead of adding a counter argument to the curriculum, they took the film out! (so much for being fair and balanced) Their partisan agenda and lies or nothing.