Back in 1978, architectural critic Peter Blake wrote a book titled Form Follows Fiasco. In retrospect, it was sort of Tom Wolfe’s From Bauhaus to Our House played straight, except that unlike Wolfe, Blake, who for a time ran the architectural department at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, was once a true believer in modern architecture; to the best of my knowledge, The Master Builders, his early 1960s hagiography of Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright is still for sale to this day in the MoMA bookshop.
But by the mid-1970s Blake, no relation to the British pop artist of the same name, observed that much of modern architecture, which promised to Start From Zero (to coin a phrase) and revolutionize the living conditions of the world via a utopian transformation of aesthetics and construction, was essentially a bust. Corbusier’s massive apartment designs, transplanted to America in the 1950s and sold under the rubric of “Urban Renewal” razed poor but functional urban neighborhoods and replaced them with concrete nightmares. Before, the streets and stoops of the old neighborhoods allowed parents to see what their kids were up to; the huge parks that Corbusier loved to place his buildings in became no man’s land war zones at night.
Similarly in England, Theodore Dalrymple wrote a few years ago:
Until quite recently, I had assumed that the extreme ugliness of the city in which I live was attributable to the Luftwaffe. I imagined that the cheap and charmless high rise buildings which so disfigure the city-scape had been erected of necessity in great gaping holes left by Heinkel bombers. I had spent much of my childhood playing in deserted bomb shelters in public parks: and although I was born some years after the end of the war, that great conflagration still exerted a powerful hold on the imagination of British children of my generation. I discovered how wrong I was not long ago when I entered a store whose walls were decorated with large photographs of the city as it had been before the war. It was then a fine place, in a grandiloquent, Victorian kind of way. Every building had spoken of a bulging, no doubt slightly pompous and ridiculous, municipal pride. Industry and Labor were glorified in statuary, and a leavening of Greek temples and Italian Renaissance palaces lightened the prevailing mock-Venetian Gothic architecture.
“A great shame about the war,” I said to the store assistant, who was of an age to remember the old days. “Look at the city now.”
“The war?” she said. “The war had nothing to do with it. It was the council.”
The City Council—the people’s elected representatives it transpired, had done far more damage to the fabric of the city in the 1950s and 1960s than had Goering’s air force. Indeed, they had managed to turn it into a terrible visual ordeal for anyone with the most minimal visual sensibility.
Still though, some mid-century modern architecture worked out reasonably well — ironically for the socialist-oriented Bauhaus and their champions, in the form of steel and glass corporate office towers. Just check out the swanky offices of the gang on Mad Men, or drop by the Lever House or the Seagram Building on Park Ave.
Today, as Jonah Goldberg, Michael Malone, Joel Kotkin and James Lileks have each recently noted, America as a nation doesn’t build in anywhere near the quantity it did during much of the 20th century. But will we look back at the follies of the similarly Start From Zero “green revolution” in much the same skeptical way as Blake, Dalrymple and Wolfe have documented the utopian pretensions of modern architecture?
Maybe, as a couple of recent blog posts highlight, along with a great new video from Politizoid to put it all into perspective, after the page jump.
Aaaahh! Ed this is one article I’m simply going to sit back and reflect on without any comment other than to say I loved your citations and the premise of the article. I hope some of the younger generations will invest some in depth thought into this subject matter and correlate it appropriately.
Hmm. I really don’t see what people have against CFLs. I switched to them a decade ago, entirely of my own free will, simply because the bulbs last so much longer. I have no problem with the light quality, and I buy them where I can choose the “warmth”, so their light is indistinguishable from incandescent. If an 11 watt bulb is too dim, then buy a brighter one! Sheesh – it’s not rocket science.
And the “poison” angle is way overblown. For one thing, the best advice is to just sweep the thing up and dispose of it. There just isn’t that much mercury in them. It is possible to construct a test which shows unacceptable levels or mercury in the vicinity of a broken bulb if you just leave it there for 1/2 an hour … but sheesh, it’s not like people are dealing with these things 24/7. You don’t just take a single whiff of mercury and explode or something. Life has risks – passive smoking, car emissions, household chemicals, why is this the only one that matters now?
For another – I have never actually broken a CFL, or seen a broken CFL. I HAVE seen broken fluorescent tubes, though. Why? Because every single place I’ve ever worked or studied has been lit with them. They each contain more mercury than a CFL does … so why don’t they get a mention?
And there are CFLs on the way that don’t use liquid mercury anyway. The market has spoken. I guess the talking points will need to be updated
I’m not an expert, but I also understand that burning coal to generate power releases quite a lot of mercury. I’m not hearing anything about that from the CFL-haters either.
It’s a non-issue. It’s up there with complaining about seat belts.
It is an issue, it is an issue of choice.
People have the right to choose which alternative technology they prefer to use (or not use). Some people may prefer to pay more in energy costs for incandescent bulbs, others may prefer CFLs for energy savings. Some people may prefer the light given off by one or the other. Some may simply have a preference based entirely on irrational and capricious reasons, or just because they are unwilling to change.
It is the individual consumer whose home, money, and life it is, and they are the only person qualified to make such decisions.
By the way, if a nanny-state government has the authority to mandate one type of bulb over another in our own (or the environments’) “best interest” what prevents it from mandating NO bulbs at all? Or perhaps allowing each household one 11 watt CFL lit at a time is a reasonable compromise. It’s for our own good, after all.
It’s about choice. Why should I have to buy these things for the closet where I store cleaning items and small hand tools like screwdrivers and my hammer? I usually need a light there for about a minute, but the quick on/off is bad for CFL lifespans, and having to wait 5 minutes to be able to distinguish a Philips from a flat screw driver is bad for my blood pressure. I’m am sick of being told what to do by people who have long stopped screwing in their own lightbulbs. And it’s rather obvious that they don’t worry about tightening loose screws.
Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m still able (in australia) to buy small incandescent bulbs. I have one in one of my loos – where it’s usually cold, and I can’t be bothered waiting for a CFL to get into its stride. So I have a small 40w globe – no problem. Are you telling me that you can’t get any incandescent bulbs of any kind, ever?
And we can still buy low-power halogens. Dunno how things vary where you are.
I vaguely recall similar grumblings when emissions controls hit cars in the 70′s and early 80′s. I had friends who subverted the exhaust manifold feedback thinking it would improve performance. Furious, they were. Now they’d deny it.
Surely there are things that worry you more? Have a look at the stuff that trucks shove into the air. Big vehicles, driving around dumping their ashes onto neighborhoods and other road users. They don’t NEED to do that – it’s just cheaper to not maintain the engine, or not put more testing into the design in the first place. And you worry about the minuscule impact of the one CFL you’ll break in your lifetime.
Do you wear a seatbelt?
Do you put leaded fuel in your car?
Do you dump solvents down the drain?
It’s all about choice
First off, I like the CFL bulbs because they last longer. That’s my choice. However . . .
I never wore a seatbelt until they started handing out traffic tickets for NOT wearing one.
I quit putting leaded fuel in my car when they quit selling leaded fuel. I used to have a 1974 Camaro, so I remember when they quit selling “regular” gas. Unleaded gas sucks. Ethanol sucks worse, AND we pay tax dollars to subsidize it, even though it ruins your engine. Even Al Gore admits that ethanol was a big ol’ bamboozlin’ boondoggle, now that he’s not trying to buy votes with corn subsidies. I used to avoid gas stations with “10% ethanol added,” but now they ALL have it.
We don’t HAVE a choice any more, unfortunately.
Haven’t dumped any solvents down the drain yet, but I might start!
“I never wore a seatbelt until they started handing out traffic tickets for NOT wearing one.”
Er … why? Don’t you like being alive?
“I used to have a 1974 Camaro, so I remember when they quit selling “regular” gas.
I hope you upgraded to something better.
Unleaded gas sucks.
Lead sucks. Do some googling on toxicity and the correlations between TEL phase-out and average IQ points, no to mention crime rates. Take it with a grain of salt, but there’s not much doubt about the effects of airborne lead on public health.
I didn’t wear a seatbelt until they made it the law myself. I’d say that was true of most Americans. This passage by David Frum on how less safety-obsessed Americans were in the 1970s certainly rang true to how I remember the decade.
If the current law in the US is not repealed there will be a Bootleg Market for incandescents. The problem with CFL’s isn’t the single broken bulb, but rather the billions that will be discarded year by year, each containing a drop of mercury. A flood begins with the first drop of rain! How long before the unintended consequence of that is felt?
But … why only NOW do conservatives worry about disposal problems? Mercury button batteries, mercury thermometers, all manner of technology waste – it’s already a problem. Not to mention the millions of fluorescent tubes that are dumped every year – and usually when they’re still working (because it’s cheaper to just periodically replace all the tubes in a building than it is to change them as they die). Car batteries – several kilograms of lead and acid each. Really, the drop of mercury in each CFL is small beer.
The intent is to phase out incandescent bulbs, beginning with 100 watt and working down. Eventually, you will not be able to get your smaller bulbs.
The early 70′s emission controls were a disaster. Fuel economy and horsepower dropped dramatically, while stalling and hesitation increased. CFL bulbs, emission controls and early airbags – which could kill women and children – are all great examples of governments pushing ideology faster than the technology can make it practical. Was burning 20% more fuel in order to have a somewhat cleaner exhaust worth it? It wasn’t until technology caught up, with catalytic converters and fuel injection, that meaningful improvements were made. Eventually, there will be better lightbulbs. However, they are not here yet, and we should not be forced by govt decree to use inferior and hazardous ones.
I personally have found CFL’s not usable in a variety of situations, and the vast majority have not had significantly longer lifespans than incandescents.
While American automakers had to try to meet the regulations on the fly and try to make a profit, the Japanese had all the time in the world to work out the bugs before they launched their invasion of the American auto market. By then the American public was fed up with the crap that the US auto makers had no choice but to produce. The US didn’t have the luxury of waiting 5 years to get the car truly ready for market. The Japs on the other hand were expanding, so they could take their time to releasea better vehicle.
No doubt, the EPA killed the American auto industry.
Odd. Matthew is actually on the side of REASON on this one!
On the “toxic mercury” issue, anyway.
Even a broken watch is right twice a day.
I too have had generally good results with in-home fluorescents. Two overheads (one which used “chandelier” incandescents) were replaced with lamps holding “Circuline” bulbs. Then I replaced a number of table lamps with Fado globes from IKEA that used those spiraly CFLs. (I use 25-30 watt CFLs, replacing 100w incandescents.) I don’t regret switching at all, if only because I’m getting much longer life out of them, and I have a choice of color temperatures. Apropos, those spiral CFLs were actually invented by GE, who decided against manufacturing them. The Chinese copied the design; now they own the market.
I agree with the writer re the high-speed rail plans, only because the US is today unwilling or incapable of doing it right. They want to do it on the cheap, using existing rails (often shared with freight), building it and then running it according to union rules. And we’ve got no domestic expertise in the field, so we have to rely on foreign concerns to do it for us – or try doing it ourselves, learning as we go. So of course it’s going to cost more than it’s worth. It’s no wonder China is cleaning our clock.
Matthew! The perfect prole!
Do you love Big Brother?
Do you buy Victory Cabbage?
Do you love to stand in line with other proles for your ration of Victory Gin?
Do you fully participate in Two Minutes Hate? Down with Sarah Goldstein!
Long Live Big Brother!
“the rubric of “Urban Renewal” raised poor but functional urban neighborhoods and replaced them with concrete nightmares.”
Oh, please.
I expect better of you, Mr. Driscoll.
It’s RAZED, not “raised”. The concrete nightmares got raised. The old neighborhoods were RAZED.
Here:
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/raze
[Fixed; thanks -- Ed]
As for the article, please do some more homework. Mercury is NOT “highly toxic”. Neither is lead.
Many mercury and lead COMPOUNDS are highly toxic, but lead and mercury have almost zero bio-availability, therefore are not very toxic at all.
I recall reading an old National Geographic article (from the 50s?) about mercury mining. One picture showed a miner floating, fully clothed (including hard hat!), in a pool of mercury. It looked like fun to me.
The mines had liquid mercury weeping from every surface. The article mentioned how the miners spent an hour or so in a sauna each day sweating the mercury out of their pores. Health problems? Negligible.
Now the phrase, “mad as a hatter” comes from the fact that, during the Victorian era and earlier, hatters often became mad after years of exposure to mercury COMPOUNDS that were used in making top hats.
People who wail about toxic mercury and lead hazards are ignorant of basic chemistry.
Worry more about the nasty chemicals released when these things burn out and fry some of the plastic housing.
The issue isn’t about which technology is superior. (LEDs are quickly making both obsolete.)
It’s not even about CHOICE.
The important issue is the legality (or lack thereof) of Congress regulating such a matter.
Yes, it’s all about choice.
But, WTF are these bloated morons on Capitol Hill doing blathering about how 300 million people conduct their households?
Ed-
When having discussions about air travel vs. train or high-speed train service you have to remember that jets cannot fly on electric power. High speed rail can. Following peak-oil (you can argue when it will happen, but it will happen) the price of burning fossil fuels will skyrocket. So will the cost of flying jet planes. Commercial air travel will eventually subside and we had better have an alternative.
I’m aware of some smaller planes being able to fly on batteries but I’m not even aware of any prototypes for large commercial jetliners flying on battery power.
Love to talk to all of you, but I’m off on a six-mile round trip to the dump to “properly” dispose of my phone battery. Right.
They won’t take it at the dump. Throw it out the car window in front of the elementary school. That’s where I get rid of my burned out fluorescents.
Nate – check out the stats on ‘peak oil and gas’. The current estimate for natural gas is 250 years of domestic reserves. There are several websites that have reported this finding by energy experts. One is the global warming policy foundation blog. Also, check energy news about North Dakota’s emerging production of shale oil. In addition to modern techniques in extracting petroleum from shale, technology now can drill deeper, and the old fields are proving to have lots of life left; if the Russian theory of abiotic origins continues to disprove the concept of ‘peak oil’, the only obstacle is environmentalism.
I’d love to say CFLs have no harm. Esp since dear husband who pays the utility bills installed them throughout the house. The dear wife (me) however, has suffered two car accidents with documented head injuries. I have already spent more time than I care to in the exam room at a neurologist’s office, failing test after test. We’ve had three lightbulb breaks. I was not informed of two of them, and had to go back to the doctors to see if the latest round of speech failures, stutters and ticcing was from a new need for more or different medicine. The lightbulbs had broken in the kitchen, and the spousal unit who doesn’t know, and didn’t care, about lightbulbs, just picked up the pieces and put them in the trashbag. For me to take out. For me to walk around in the kitchen, pet the dog laying on the floor of the kitchen, pick up the homework from the kids that fell on the floor…..The third and final lightbulb broke when we turned on the light in the kids’ playroom and the lightbulb snapped open and shed something onto the carpet. The spousal unit drove off to work, to hear the words of Rush Limbaugh, on the matter of lightbulbs. He decided- wives can be replaced, kids can’t: lightbulbs can be replaced, too.
it’s my life. it’s quite literally my life. do you get that an uncontrolled migraine event shortens your life? if it happens when you are asleep, it can kill you? that’s how two people I know- one twentysomething, one thirtysomething- died.
I can control chemicals. I can avoid hardware stores. I can skip sulfites, coffee. I can get enough sleep. But I can’t really control lightbulbs if I can’t buy safe lightbulbs.
it is a big deal. I am worthwhile, and deserve to be safe as any other American. I don’t want to die b/c someone needed to sacrifice to a fake goddess ( gaia) that I don’t believe in.
ari
Fortunately this environmental paradox may soon be resolved. LED bulbs are now on sale at Home Depot and elsewhere to be sure. These are purported to last for 100,000 hours and, like fluorescents, use considerably less energy per lumen produced than the old tungsten bulb which is more environmentally friendly from a disposal perspective but less so in that it wastes a lot of energy in the form of heat; more energy required, more pollution. Hopefully, LEDs’ do not present the same disposal hazard as fluorescents.
There’s an easy work-around for low-flow toilets. Just hold the lever down until the whole tank empties and you’ll get a good flush. I’ve had fewer clogs since I figured this out.
Similarly, for areas where light is needed right away, like the bathroom, I’ll simply leave the CFL bulbs lit 24/7.
Nothing is foolproof, because fools can be quite ingenious.
In April 2008, I put together a review of CFL’s and some of their difficulties that are not talked about, or printed on the box.
The CFL Advertising Account
The good and bad about compact fluorescent lights. Why the ads are both true and false. How to save and waste money on CFL’s.
My research indicated that the average CFL at that time will turn on 2000 times before its electronics fail. The recommendation to leave them on for 15 minutes is a crazy interpretation of that fact. Leaving them on doesn’t heal them. But, hey, at least if you leave them on for 15 minutes each time, you will get 500 hours use out of them before they fail. If you leave them on for 5+ hours at a time, then you will probably get the full 8000 or 10000 hour rated life.
Interesting to me, people who report on current CFL’s omit definite information about how many on-off cycles current bulbs will complete. Consumer Reports gives a Good-Bad rating for this, but not an absolute figure. This still seems to be a problem.
I also present a cost analysis of expected savings, taking into account CFL and standard bulbs release of heat energy, under air conditioning, winter heating, and no heating or cooling needed.
The rules for cleaning up a broken bulb are hilarious. I think the small amount of murcury is not harmful with a bit of care. But, our environmental agencies can’t admit that, because they have taken an extreme position on coal emissions. So, they give instructions suitable for hasmat toxic cleanup.
Look people, the “Anointed One” makes his chess move’s and us babbling humans need to realize that the unbelieving conspiracy “heathen” understate the issues when they say that Obama is a radical. Alas, they know not the secrets we are all going to witness. The “Anointed One” is amazing (and according to Biden: he’s so brillant), and takes the people at the highly efficient Post Office and sends them right over to the Student Loan Program. The “Anointed One” knows all. Twitter messages were machine-gunned to cell phones at mach speed. Facebook and MySpace groups spread across the Internet like digital fire. YouTube videos featuring celebrities ricocheted across the globe and into college students’ in-boxes with devastating regularity. All the while, the Obama mega-money-raising engine whirred on at high speed, until the result became inevitable: an unthinking mass of young voters marched forward to elect the “Anointed One.”
I am not surprised to hear these stinking lies about our “Anointed One,” it should be apparent to anyone that this was coming down the pike. I do have a couple questions about future process steps concerning these developments? When the “Annointed One” decides to start bar-coding everyone, will we get to decide if the mark is on our hand or forehead? Allot of people will prefer the hand, (especially women of course), unless your a porn actress or something along those lines. Also, my girlfriend was wondering if the Administration will be getting fashion advice from Hollyweird or the New York City crowd? We are both agree that the Administration “Maoies” as the “Anointed One ” so lovingly calls them,will be getting uniforms similar to the SS uniforms in Germany in WW2. With big letters abreviating “Barack’s Socialists.” So shall we start calling them the BS?
Soon enough the CFL thing may be moot, assuming this is real —
http://pesn.com/2011/01/17/9501746_Focardi-Rossi_10_kW_cold_fusion_prepping_for_market/
Individual scientists go straight from small experiments to manufacture and delivery of power units. Their “team of scientists” remain anonymous. I smile.
I won’t be investing in their company or process. I’ll just wait for the cheap energy. I expect it will be a long wait.