“It’s not easy being green.” So went the lament of that great American actor Kermit the Frog. He may have been right. Just ask the Chinese workers who make those little squiggly, weird-looking fluorescent light bulbs that are the favorites of the Save the Planet crowd.
In case you didn’t know, those eco-friendly (?) light bulbs used to be called mercury vapor bulbs. I guess that term got to be a little scary since mercury is a deadly toxic substance. So someone (probably from the government) came along and gave it the touch-feely name “fluorescent”. Who could be afraid of that? It sounds so French and who’s afraid of the French?
It seems we used to make mercury vapor lights in Kentucky. But someone said, “Hey, this is not a good idea. We need to export this poison out of our country and let somebody else die.”
So now we’ve turned over the production of mercury vapor lights to China; where there is no OSHA and no occupational or safety standards. It turns out that 90% of the Chinese workers, (that’s 9 out of 10 for those of you in public school) have been poisoned by the mercury. They’ve been poisoned so badly that they had to be hospitalized. But who cares? After all, they’re just little yellow people who live on the other side of the world. There are 3 billion of them, so if a few thousand die, what’s the big deal? They’ll just make more anyway. It’s kind of like the DDT scare. DDT killed a lot of mosquitoes and no people, but let’s get rid of it. Now there are 2 million fewer people in Africa and lots of mosquitoes. Ah, the logic of liberalism.
Here is something else you didn’t know: You can’t throw used mercury vapor bulbs in the trash. That’s right, you have to take them to an authorized dump station where they will be handled as hazardous material. That means these used light bulbs will be stored with nuclear waste and other HAZMATS that will make your hair fall out and testicles shrivel up. Better living through technology!
So in 2012, thanks to former President George Bush, you no longer can buy incandescent bulbs (those are the ones Thomas Edison invented and contain no poisonous materials.) But in addition to those cute little mercury-filled light bulbs you will be forced to buy, you might want to invest in an environmental suit. Because if you break a bulb in your house, you’re going to need it.
Oh, and put 911 on speed dial. You’re going to need that too.
