Not when you have to pay $2000 to poison control specialists to clean up after you break one.

How much money does it take to screw in a compact fluorescent light bulb? About US$4.28 for the bulb and labour—unless you break the bulb. Then you, like Brandy Bridges of Ellsworth, Maine, could be looking at a cost of about US$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 favour of compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs).

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

Personally, I’m just fine with CFL’s.  If people want to use them and save on their electric bill then great.  That’s the sort of vote-with-your-feet market pressure that’s going to impact the energy industry in a positive way.  My problem with supporters of CFL lighting is that many of them want to force us all to use them.  And like most things the government tries to mandate, there are hidden costs involved.  Like the scenario above.

Ethanol is another example of this.  Certain politicians who work for the government have decided (after their palms were thoroughly greased by the ethanol industry, no doubt) that ethanol is the savior for our automobile fuel industry.  They want to mandate the fuel’s use and prop it up as a competitor to cheaper, better-quality fossil fuels with tax-funded subsidies.  Yet what they’re ignoring are the very real consequences of forcing such a move on the population.

Like the devastating effect it’s going to have on the ranching industry.  Or the artificially higher prices we’ll all pay as a result of the market-manipulating these politicians are doing to prop up ethanol.

My point, out of all of this, is this: We should never let our politicians make decisions in the market place for us.  We shouldn’t let them decide what sort of light bulb or fuel is going to work best for us because they’re not very good at making those decisions.  And they’re often basing their decisions more on who gives them political contributions than anything else.

There is nothing more powerful, and more right, than millions of free citizens making free choices in a free economic environment.  Mandates forcing us to make certain decisions in the market, be they for environmental or political reasons, always make us less free.