Liberal Fascism
Ross Douthat and Megan McArdle have recently commented on regulations that will likely require (via the back door of efficiency standards) that America convert from conventional incandescent light bulbs to CFLs (fluorescent lights). The most frequently cited justification is that they will reduce energy “waste”, and therefore, among other things, reduce global warming. The bad parts: CFL bulbs will make your home as pleasantly lit as Kmart, and if one breaks it will dump some mercury in your house that “won’t be a problem if simple precautions are taken”.
What’s so funny about this is that CFL proponents (or more precisely, proponents of laws that would make it illegal for you to use incandescent bulbs in your house) often refer to “inefficient incandescent technology that has barely changed since the invention of the tungsten filament nearly a century ago.” This profoundly misunderstands technology. The best technologies last hundreds or thousands of years, and become so much a part of the built environment that we don’t even think of them as technologies anymore: books, stone houses, woven shirts, fire. The fact that incandescent bulbs have lasted as long as they have and that a law is required to make people give them up probably indicates that it is a great technology.
People like the kind of light that these bulbs give off. Why focus on just this technology that allows the aesthetic pleasure of pleasant light, but is “inefficient” because we get the same number of lumens with fewer units of CO2 emissions from another technology. Why not pass a law that all new or repainted buildings – homes, offices, everything – must be painted white? It would increase the albedo of the Earth and thereby reduce AGW with certainty, in spite of no loss of the functional efficiency of buildings. And what about this desire for wool, silk and cotton clothes? Shouldn’t we pass a law making it illegal to wear anything not made of petrochemical products like rayon and polyester, if we determine that the net AGW impacts of more animals is greater that the impacts of greater refinery utilization? One way or another, of course, all clothes should have to be white. We ought to establish a sumptuary efficiency commissariat to evaluate many such recommendations.
Of course we won’t have any of these ideas passed into law because they will not make GE, Sylvania and Philips a ton of money by writing higher-margin products that align with their global standards into law we are sensible, and therefore slippery slope arguments are sophomoric.
This highlights the problem with Megan McArdle’s point that we just need a carbon tax to avoid all this rent-seeking. As I have written about at tedious length, creating the tax itself will require huge side-deals. Want evidence of that? All three remaining plausible presidential candidates propose aggressive emissions limitations. All three propose to price carbon using cap-and-trade rather than a tax. Why is that? Because, in spite of being enormously less efficient, it will be easier to pass politically. And the horse trading hasn’t even begun.
I’m not in favor of this kind of strong-arm enforcing of CFL technology, at all. I agree that this sort of thing should be leveraged with incentives, not enforced through legislation.
That said, I think these arguments against CFLs, rather than against forcing the use of CFLs, are deeply dishonest. The quality of the light is an aesthetic thing, I suppose. But I swear to you, I cannot tell the difference. I can’t tell to the degree that I have CFLs and incandescents in two similar lamps in the same room and wasn’t able to tell which was which without looking. Honestly, what kind of X-men are you all, with your mutant abilities to detect this extremely subtle change in light quality?
Secondly, the mercury thing is just bunk. There is less than 1% as much mercury in a CFL as there is in a household thermometer. The dangers of short term mercury exposure are exaggerated. And I can’t understand why adults would be breaking light bulbs left and right.
— Freddie · Feb 7, 01:42 AM · #
It also seems that the design of cap-and-trade matters — if companies get it for free, they’ve suddenly been granted a valuable asset for zippo. If there’s an auction, well, the costs will be passed onto consumers. Advocates are trying to fool us into believing cap-and-trade is not a tax by conscripting corporations into the role of tax-farmers. The frustrating thing is I’m not sure that all of the presidential candidates advocating cap-and-trade realize that it’s a tax.
— Reihan · Feb 7, 02:18 AM · #
I don’t get the complaints about CFC light. I’ve absolutely hated incandescent light since before there were alternatives that worked in a home environment. It’s ugly and yellow hard on the eyes and depresses the sanity right out of me.
That said, the CFC bulb legislation is … stupid? idiotic? a massive waste of people’s time? something along those lines, anyway.
— MouseJunior · Feb 7, 10:56 AM · #
I love the title of this post. Yes, this is truly fascism, in it’s ugliest incarnation. Thank you for reminding me why I read TAS instead of other silly commentators.
— Derek · Feb 7, 02:24 PM · #
Freddie:
To be clear, CFLs have been on the market for a long time and I’ve never raised objections. I am not opposed to people being able to buy them. I also agree that lots of people on the right suddenly seem to be environmental campaigners on the mercury issue.
You know, we have both CFLs and incandescent bulbs in our house. One place we wouldn’t want a CFL bulb, for example, is a lamp in one of our kids’ rooms. (Yes, I realize I am deploying the always-suspect “it’s all about the children” tactic).
— Jim Manzi · Feb 7, 03:39 PM · #
Couple of thoughts —
In addition to the reasons Freddie raises, there’s a perhaps more important reason that the mercury issue is bunk. The electricity savings from CFLs generally result in a net decrease in mercury pollution, because burning coal to produce power releases mercury as a byproduct. Obviously there’s a difference between mercury in the air an mercury in the home, but generally speaking this issue is…well, just not an issue.
One thing that separates light bulbs from, say, woolen shirts is that lighting is responsible for a massive share of electricity consumption — figures range from 15 to 30%, depending on exactly which sectors are being surveyed. I get the sense that many people who complain about the lighting efficiency standard view it as some form of absurd micromanaging, akin to setting an electric toothbrush efficiency standard. In truth, the issue is more on the order of transportation efficiency, a topic that government and citizens have taken a great interest in for several decades. CAFE isn’t the world’s most well-written legislation, but it has nevertheless been successful, as will the lighting legislation.
As for the progress of technology — anyone want to place a bet on whether industry will within five years of the ban produce light bulbs that produce whatever hue of light consumers desire?
— Adam · Feb 7, 05:07 PM · #
The frustrating thing is I’m not sure that all of the presidential candidates advocating cap-and-trade realize that it’s a tax.
Well, since they’re choosing cap-and-trade specifically so they can pretend it’s not a tax, they’re not going to admit that they realize it’s a tax.
I think the politically clever idea would be to divide most of the ‘clean-air futures’ among US taxpayers and force the carbon-producing industries to purchase them back on a government-run exchange. If the default action is immediate trade-in, then it just becomes equivalent to an income tax rebate (balanced, of course, by higher energy, gas and incandescent light bulb usage costs) with the added feel-good environmentalism factor.
— Bo · Feb 7, 06:21 PM · #
You know, we have both CFLs and incandescent bulbs in our house. One place we wouldn’t want a CFL bulb, for example, is a lamp in one of our kids’ rooms. (Yes, I realize I am deploying the always-suspect “it’s all about the children” tactic).
Seems perfectly sensible to me!
— Freddie · Feb 7, 07:52 PM · #
I hope you’re right about the mercury, Freddie, because I plan to throw my used up CFLs into the trash rather than figuring out how to recycle them.
The biggest argument about CFLs, if true, is that they’re not more efficient if you turn your lights on and off. If we take the most extreme example (say a refrigerator light), do CFLs still win, or should we allow incandescent refridgerator lights?
— J Mann · Feb 7, 07:59 PM · #
And on a tangent, what are your thoughts on albedo, Jim? What would be the relative costs and benefits of requiring roads and roofs to be white versus carbon reduction?
I read a Lomborg piece on why we should require rooftops to be white, but my first thought was that if it was that easy, we would see someone other than Lomborg talking about it.
— J Mann · Feb 7, 08:08 PM · #
Advocates are trying to fool us into believing cap-and-trade is not a tax by conscripting corporations into the role of tax-farmers.
Er…who are these advocates? Actually, the converse is true. Many environmental advocates loathe cap-and-trade because they view it as too easily gamed, so cap-and-trade proponents tend to spend a lot of time pointing out that cap-and-trade is, in essence, just a form of taxation.
Sadly, one of the political advantages of cap-and-trade legislation is that it doesn’t contain the word “tax” in its title, but I think it’s rather clear that the demonization of the word tax in the U.S. is not something that can be pinned on environmentalists.
The frustrating thing is I’m not sure that all of the presidential candidates advocating cap-and-trade realize that it’s a tax.
The wonderful thing is that we need not speculate! In a recent Democratic debate, Obama leapt on the chance to point out that the cost of auctioned allowances (of the type that he advocates) would be passed on to consumers. Hillary spoke immediately after him, and although she didn’t repeat Obama’s point, she certainly didn’t disagree with anything he said. So you can stop being frustrated! It appears that some politicians actually do understand the implications of their policy proposals, and are even willing to discuss them in an intelligent manner.
— Adam · Feb 7, 10:01 PM · #
Um, “fascism in its ugliest incarnation”? Please give me a break. This is fascism in a pleasant mood. Fascism in its ugliest incarnation involves torture, prisoners held without trial and other failures of rule of law, rampant militarism, unjustified invasion of weaker countries, corporate use of government muscle to improve its own profits, and political violence from officially sanctioned private entities.
And, BTW, the cost of carbon permits will fall largely on electricity users. It doesn’t matter if they are auctioned or not. See a recent study by Dallas Burtraw (I think) Resources for the Future, RFF.ORG.
— Strat · Feb 20, 02:42 PM · #