I think Steven Milloy has figured out a new way to create anti-environmentalist fear - panic mongering about compact fluorescent lightbulbs (CFLs). Turns out that CFLs, like all fluorescent lights, have small amounts of mercury (in this case about 5mg or about 1/100th the amount in an old mercury thermometer).

How much money does it take to screw in a compact fluorescent lightbulb? About $4.28 for the bulb and labor - unless you break the bulb. Then you, like Brandy Bridges of Ellsworth, Maine, could be looking at a cost of about $2,004.28, which doesn't include the costs of frayed nerves and risks to health.

Sound crazy? Perhaps no more than the stampede to ban the incandescent light bulb in favor of compact fluorescent lightbulbs (CFLs) - a move already either adopted or being considered in California, Canada, the European Union and Australia.

According to an April 12 article in The Ellsworth American, Bridges had the misfortune of breaking a CFL during installation in her daughter's bedroom: It dropped and shattered on the carpeted floor.

Aware that CFLs contain potentially hazardous substances, Bridges called her local Home Depot for advice. The store told her that the CFL contained mercury and that she should call the Poison Control hotline, which in turn directed her to the Maine Department of Environmental Protection.

The DEP sent a specialist to Bridges' house to test for mercury contamination. The specialist found mercury levels in the bedroom in excess of six times the state's "safe" level for mercury contamination of 300 billionths of a gram per cubic meter.

Notice the fear quotes around "safe"? Makes it sound like Milloy is suggesting there is no safe level of mercury, but back to this in a moment.

The DEP specialist recommended that Bridges call an environmental cleanup firm, which reportedly gave her a "low-ball" estimate of $2,000 to clean up the room. The room then was sealed off with plastic and Bridges began "gathering finances" to pay for the $2,000 cleaning. Reportedly, her insurance company wouldn’t cover the cleanup costs because mercury is a pollutant.

Given that the replacement of incandescent bulbs with CFLs in the average U.S. household is touted as saving as much as $180 annually in energy costs - and assuming that Bridges doesn't break any more CFLs - it will take her more than 11 years to recoup the cleanup costs in the form of energy savings.

See that? Install CFLs and if you break one your house becomes a toxic waste dump! Panic! Mercury!

This is very interesting. For one, people have dealt with household mercury use for a long time in the form of thermometers, and while it's definitely a good thing that those have been phased-out for alcohol thermometers, it's simply not true that mercury spills from fluorescent lights are going to bring about end-times. It's certainly toxic stuff - so are a lot of things you have about the house - but Steven Milloy, purely out of concern for your well-being, simply won't stand for any amount of toxic mercury exposure.

He's also desperately concerned for the environment, unlike Greenpeace.

Greenpeace also recommends CFLs while simultaneously bemoaning contamination caused by a mercury thermometer factory in India. But where are mercury-containing CFLs made? Not in the U.S., under strict environmental regulation. CFLs are made in India and China, where environmental standards are virtually non-existent.

And let's not forget about the regulatory nightmare known as the Superfund law, the EPA regulatory program best known for requiring expensive but often needless cleanup of toxic waste sites, along with endless litigation over such cleanups.

We'll eventually be disposing billions and billions of CFL mercury bombs. Much of the mercury from discarded and/or broken CFLs is bound to make its way into the environment and give rise to Superfund liability, which in the past has needlessly disrupted many lives, cost tens of billions of dollars and sent many businesses into bankruptcy.

...

Not only are CFLs much more expensive than incandescent bulbs and emit light that many regard as inferior to incandescent bulbs, they pose a nightmare if they break and require special disposal procedures. Should government (egged on by environmentalists and the Wal-Marts of the world) impose on us such higher costs, denial of lighting choice, disposal hassles and breakage risks in the name of saving a few dollars every year on the electric bill?

It's true, you shouldn't throw away CFLs if you can avoid it. To recycle CFLs determine the nearest depo by going to earth911 or energystar.gov. But let's think about whether Milloy is being fully honest with us here (haha).

For one, it's very interesting how concerned Milloy is about mercury contamination of the environment when he's consistently taken the position it's harmless when it comes from coal-fired plants. Interesting, but still not a true example of selectivity or deception, just hypocrisy (hypocrisy is ok if you're telling the truth). But is he? Well, no.

Simply go to the GE site on CFLs and they'll give you a nice little discussion about the real risk of mercury exposure:

CFLs contain a very small amount of mercury sealed within the glass tubing - an average of 5 milligrams (roughly equivalent to the tip of a ball-point pen). Mercury is an essential, irreplaceable element in CFLs and is what allows the bulb to be an efficient light source. By comparison, older home thermometers contain 500 milligrams of mercury and many manual thermostats contain up to 3000 milligrams. It would take between 100 and 600 CFLs to equal those amounts.

Note every bulb broken doesn't result in a 2000 dollar clean-up bill unless you're just a total idiot. They also are nice enough to tell us the actual decrease in mercury in the environment as a result of using CFLs:

Mercury is an element (Hg on the periodic table) found naturally in the environment. Mercury emissions in the air can come from both natural and man-made sources. Utility power plants (mainly coal-fired) are the primary man-made source, as mercury that naturally exists in coal is released into the air when coal is burned to make electricity. Coal-fired power generation accounts for roughly 40% of the mercury emissions in the U.S. EPA is implementing policies to reduce airborne mercury emissions. Under regulations issued in 2005, coal-fired power plants will need to reduce their emissions by 70 percent by 2018.

CFLs present an opportunity to prevent mercury emissions from entering the environment because they help to reduce emissions from coal-fired power plants. A coal-fired power plant will emit 13.6 milligrams of mercury to produce electricity required to use an incandescent light bulb, compared to 3.3 milligrams for a CFL.

Even in areas without significant coal-fired power generation as part of the electricity mix (e.g., Alaska and the Pacific Northwest), there are other, equally positive environmental impacts from saving energy through the use of CFLs: reduction of nitrogen oxides (which cause smog), and prevention of substantial quantities of CO2, a greenhouse gas (which is linked to global warming), as well as other air pollutants.

Airborne mercury poses a very low risk of exposure. However, when mercury emissions deposit into lakes and oceans, they can transform into methyl mercury that builds up in fish. Fish consumption is the most common pathway for human exposure to mercury. Pregnant women and young children are most vulnerable to the effects of this type of mercury exposure. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) estimates that most people are not exposed to harmful levels of mercury through fish consumption. However, the FDA and state agencies do issue public health advisories.

Finally the correct way to clean up a home mercury spill without calling in a SWAT team.

Because there is such a small amount of mercury in CFLs, your greatest risk if a bulb breaks is getting cut from glass shards. Research indicates that there is no immediate health risk to you or your family should a bulb break and it's cleaned up properly. You can minimize any risks by following these proper clean-up and disposal guidelines:

1. Sweep up—don't vacuum—all of the glass fragments and fine particles.
   
2. Place broken pieces in a sealed plastic bag and wipe the area with a damp paper towel to pick up any stray shards of glass or fine particles. Put the used towel in the plastic bag as well.
   
3. If weather permits, open windows to allow the room to ventilate.
   

These are the same precautions one takes for any fluorescent lighting, which has been around for quite a while without causing end-times from mercury contamination. It's funny that Milloy who has always accused environmentalists of panic-mongering (which they do) is so willing to do the same to deflect anything that represents societal environmental reform or efforts to prevent global warming. He also will selectively use information to try to create fear of safe and long-implemented technologies such as fluorescent lighting.

Labels: global warming denialism, steven milloy

In honor of Mooney and Nisbet, I'm going to talk more about framing.

Has anyone noticed that the global warming denialist Steven Milloy of junkscience has a new frame? It's pretty novel, now global warming isn't just a conspiracy of environmentalists but of big evil corporations.

In 1999, environmentalists were just about the only special-interest group clamoring for greenhouse gas regulation and such regulation - that is, straightforward, mandatory emissions reductions under the Clean Air Act - is what they wanted given that the Senate wasn't going to ratify Kyoto without the participation of China, India and other developing nations.

Since that time, however, the spectrum of special interests clamoring for global warming regulation has significantly expanded, most importantly to big businesses that are now driving the debate - in Congress and not at the EPA.

Through its legislative power, Congress can not only mandate emissions reductions, but more importantly, it can also dole out the global warming pork.

Wall Street firms such as Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers and Morgan Stanley want Congress to establish a so-called cap-and-trade system so that they can profit from the trading of greenhouse gas emissions permits.

Industrial giants such as Dupont and Alcoa want Congress to give them "carbon credits" - essentially free money - for greenhouse gas emissions reductions already undertaken. Solar and wind energy firms, as well as the ethanol lobby, want Congress to award them subsidies and tax breaks.

All the new climate piggies that want to gorge themselves at the public trough have crowded out the environmentalists, transforming the global warming issue from an ostensibly serious save-the-planet crusade into a financial orgy complete with taxpayer pinata.

Maybe he realized how stupid it sounded when he made environmentalists out to be some insanely powerful lobby. Considering they've been largely ignored for about 7 years now, it makes sense that he'd want to jump on a new big bad conspiracy to explain why legislation to control greenhouse emissions is gaining favor. It's the big bad corporations trying to steal money from the public trough by decreasing their emissions!

Nice conspiracy-mongering there Milloy. What a joke.

**Fixed**

Labels: global warming denialism, steven milloy