To the looming unavailability in the US of incandescent light bulbs, responders logically cluster into four categories.
In one group are people who don’t care and therefore can be eliminated from further analysis. In other groups are:
• People who think humankind advanced on Jan. 1, when a ban imposed by the federal government on production of incandescent bulbs was expanded to apply to 40 and 60-w units.
• People who acknowledge the superior energy efficiencies and long-term cost advantages of halogen, compact fluorescent, LED, and high-efficiency incandescent bulbs, still legally produced, but nevertheless regret the government’s role in the change.
• People who prefer incandescent light to cooler alternatives but no longer can act on that assessment.
To people in the first group, no one should be troubled that banning production of incandescent bulbs eliminates a choice in the market for illumination. Because the prohibition will lower energy consumption, an eventuality widely seen as beneficial to everyone, a small compromise of individual freedom seems hardly consequential. People in this group probably consider those who think otherwise insufferably fussy and dismiss fans of incandescence as simply out of luck.
Maybe they’re right. Maybe people who, like this writer, worry about any state usurpation of individual choice are merely cantankerous.
But extend the logic to outsize vehicles—not large sedans or minivans but those mobile gymnasiums called sport utility vehicles and high-altitude pickup trucks ludicrously longer than the standard parking space.
In comparison with smaller denizens of the freeway, these behemoths use a lot of energy per unit of distance traveled. For a government confident enough in its energy judgment to outlaw high-heat light bulbs, why should this not be a summons to action? Why not ban whales on wheels, too?
No sensible politician would consider such a proposition, of course. Voters in large numbers apparently like their rides high, wide, and heavy. But shelves suddenly gone empty in Walmart and hardware stores indicate voters also in large numbers like their luminosity incandescent.
(Online Jan. 3, 2014; author’s e-mail: [email protected])