Lynx,

My point isn't that LED lights are the solution today, but solution for tomorrow. I was being somewhat trite in my statement and didn't mean for people to take it literally. But the main point holds true, we should not only solve today's problems, but actually get ahead of the curve. Just because LEDs has problems doesn't mean we don't try.

I live in Cleveland, where two of the light bulb plants closing are very close to me. GE's Nela Park is a mile down the road, it used to be the flagship for GEs lighting business but they have been bleeding it dry for a decade. GE has been quietly sending incandescent bulb manufacture to places like Hungary for many years as well. Nothing about their decision is very surprising to anyone who lives around here.

What a lot of the dumb comments here suggest to me is that the posters live very far from the problem and don't think it will ever come back to haunt them. This exact sort of "off shoring" of jobs is what has made Ohio the depressed rust belt state that it is now, when a few decades back it was a manufacturing powerhouse. We are bleeding and hemmorghaging jobs now.

Ohio used to be a heavily unionized Blue State. Wonder why we have increasingly voted Republican and conservative the last few elections? Duh! Unemployed, disenfranchised people tend to become very threatened and conservative, blaming exactly the wrong people and institutions for their problems (i.e., "It's all because of welfare moms", etc.).

And it's not "some single mom in Ohio" who will be losing her job (although THANKS FOR YOUR COMPASSION!), but usually middle-aged white and black MEN, with families to support and college tuition to pay, and who will NEVER be able to find comparable jobs (not in Ohio anyways) with union benefits, health insurance, disability pay, or a pension. The only places adding jobs around here anymore are Big Box discount stores and fast food restaurants -- you don't have to be Alan Greenspan to do the math and figure out how that will affect usin the future.....what will happen to families that lose their primary employment and benefits of maybe $55,000 and have to go down to a McJob at $17,000 with no health insurance.

There is a bluntly simple answer, IMHO. What most countries with any semblance of sanity do when their own manufacturing is undercut this way by what is essentially slave wages in China (and not even considering the appalling pollution which is undoubtedly directly contributing to global warming) is to IMPOSE TARIFFS. (At the same time, GE could be applying a little creative ingenuity to bringing the cost of energy-saver bulbs down by the 50 cents mentioned -- that hardly seems impossible.) A 50 cent per bulb tariff would make US-manufactured bulbs saleable and competitive, and a lot of consumers would breathe a sigh of relief at being able to buy American.

I don't know if any other readers are regularly watching the excellent PBS Ken Burns series, The War. One thing that jumps out at me during the show is how very much of our victory in WWII was directly related to the fact that the US (and Ohio, for what it matters) were manufacturing giants of the world at that time. You have to wonder how we would fair in a major conflict NOW when we are beholden in every imaginable way (financial, loans, imports, off-shoring, etc.) to China, and have lost not only our manufacturing capablity and know-how, but have totally demoralized and destroyed our human capital -- the men and women who actually know how to create and build things.

I remember the Presidential Debates of the 1990's that a certain man from Texas kept warning the rest of us about that Mighty Sucking Sound of manufacturing jobs leaving the country due to NAFTA and GATT Treaties that established "Globalism".

This is just another dagger in the heart of the American way of life watching these jobs goto Mexico or China. Frankly, there is no reason to let this happen.

America cannot survive as a Service Economy in the rest of the world. You and I cannot get rich by you cutting my grass and me sharpening your lawn mower blades.

The Industrial Revolution of America should have made it possible for America to live long past the NAFTA/GATT treaties, however, MAN is responsible for placing more emphasis on the DOLLAR than on his own life. The President can end NAFTA/GATT by signing a Letter stating so. He won't because someone is filling his pockets. He won't look out for the rest of us, only himself. The same can be said for Congress. Greed is the Order of the Day, not whether you and I have food to eat, a place to live, or a job to support our families.

We must revolt. A revolution must take place to change this dire attitude of wealthy Americans and businesses.

CFLs are nasty lights, they give off a shade of light that attacks the eyes.

There's dozens of different shades of CFLs available. Myself, I'm very partial to the ones advertised as 'daylight,' though I know other people who think that's harsh. Cool white is roughly the same as most incandescents. You probably bought Warm White which is an ugly yellow that makes you feel like you're living in the dark.

There are legitimate reasons to attack CFLs - primarily their mercury content - but it just grates on me when people complain about the quality of light. There's far more selection in colour with CFLs than with incandescent lights, so you have to be more aware of what you're buying. But the upside is there's something for every taste. Don't stop after trying just one you didn't like.

As for the mercury content - it's an issue, and a conventient disposal system needs to be put in place. However, the mercury issue has been blown out of proportion. An old-style tooth filling, which are still used by some dentists, contains about as much mercury as 100 CFLs. A tilt-switch, as found in most thermostats, is equivalent to about 600 bulbs.

Sourch: http://www.oee.nrcan.gc.ca/energystar/english/consumers/questions-answers.cfm#mercury