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Light Bulbs

Saturday, Feb. 17, 2007:

Last week one of California's pointy-headed legislators proposed that incandescent bulbs be outlawed in favor of fluorescents. He wants us to conserve energy.

It may be true that fluorescent bulbs use a quarter of the power of their incandescent cousins. But I've heard bad things about the health effects of fluorescents. They're strobe lights, you see. They flash on and off. The flashing is too fast for our conscious minds to notice it, but I'm told it causes changes in brain waves. If this law passes, I'll be buying incandescent bulbs on the black market, and I imagine a lot of other people will too.

Does this guy really think it will make a perceptible difference to the fate of the planet if everybody in California switches to less power-hungry light bulbs? I have bad news for him:

Fluorescent light bulbs are not going to save the planet. Bike lanes are not going to save the planet. Recycling is not going to save the planet. All this stuff is just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

If you want to save the planet, Mr. Legislator, I can tell you exactly how to do it. Get every nation on Earth to pass legislation restricting every woman to a maximum of one child. The penalty for having more than one baby would be, the excess babies are killed, and the mother and father are killed too. (People would try very, very hard to find ways to cheat. Cheating would have to be discouraged in a way that left no room whatever for doubt.)

That would work. It would save the planet. Within a couple of hundred years the human population would be reduced to a level at which our activities would no longer have a catastrophic environmental impact.

If you're not willing to work for a real, practical solution, kindly go away and leave me with my nice incandescent light bulbs. And by the way, I had no children. I'm doing my part to save the planet. Are you?