By Selwyn Duke

World Net Daily had a startling story about the mercury danger posed by the new CFL light bulbs.  Those are the ones environmentalists are trying to ram down our throats through regulation.  It seems that if you break even just one in your home, you’re going to have to spend $2000 to have a hazardous materials abatement service clean up the mess. 

If you think I exaggerate, talk to Brandy Bridges; her daughter’s bedroom had to be sealed off until she could afford the clean-up costs.

Here’s an excerpt from the WND piece explaining what transpired after Bridges inquired about how to handle the shattered bulb:

According to the Ellison American, the store warned her not to vacuum the carpet and directed her to call the poison control hotline in Prospect, Maine. Poison control staffers suggested she call the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention and the Maine Department of Environmental Protection.

The latter sent over a specialist to test the air in her house for mercury levels. While the rest of the house was clear, the area of the accident was contaminated above the level considered safe. The specialist warned Bridges not to clean up the bulb and mercury powder by herself – recommending a local environmental cleanup firm.

I hope everyone appreciates the gravity of this threat.  Have you ever heard the figure of speech "Mad as a hatter"?  Hatters had a reputation for being mentally unstable, and we now know their condition was attributable to mercury poisoning.  They would use the element to stiffen the fibers of their hats.

Mercury is a heavy metal that, once in the environment, has effects such as making fish dangerous for human consumption.  Thus, if we really care about the world, the last thing we’ll do is embrace technology that increases the amount of mercury released in it.

And that will be the result.  Once tens of millions of Americans are using these bulbs, can you imagine how many will dispose of them improperly?  Sanitation and landfill workers will risk continual mercury exposure.  Moreover, you’ll never know whether a home or building you enter has been contaminated with the metal.   This, not to mention the cost incurred and waste created when you need to have a team of men in space suits come and give your place the Silkwood treatment.

Meanwhile, various countries and even some of our states forge on ahead with plans to coerce us into scrapping our tried-and-true incandescent bulbs in favor of these poisonous alternatives. 

This is the price of peddling propaganda, of embracing lies.  And I’m always enraged when this happens, because if people get misinformation, they will support the wrong policies. 

Also, this case illustrates well why liberals, despite their sanctimony about protecting the environment, wreak more havoc than anyone else.  It’s why leftist governments often turn swaths of their nations into wasteland; just think of the USSR and Chernobyl.  Think of contemporary China, where one region’s farmers must now self-pollinate their fruit crops because all the bees have been killed by pesticides.

The denial of Truth always paves the way for destruction.  The first step toward formulating good policy — be it in the area of conservation, taxes, foreign policy or something else — is the acknowledgment  of reality.  This won’t happen, though, if it’s rationalized away when it conflicts with the day’s prevailing agenda. 

Then, I also have to wonder who is making money off the advocacy of these bulbs.  I can assure you that not all these staunch environmentalists are driven by purely altruistic motives.

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