Question Earthority!

Over the last couple of months, we’ve seen a number of stories about states (California) and countries (Australia) moving toward outlawing the traditional incandescent light bulb in favor of compact fluorescent varieties.

Naturally, these policy proposals have raised a few eyebrows among market environmentalists. Is government action required to achieve the transition? In a word, no.

I started converting my household to CFLs a year or so ago — buying a CFL a week with the groceries, and replacing incandescent bulbs in my house with CFLs as they burned out. At his point, I’ve got one remaining “regular size” incandescent bulb left in the house, and I’ll be replacing it with a CFL when it goes (I also have a few smaller “chandelier” inandescents — I haven’t seen a CFL for those yet, but I’ll transition when I come across one).

My state legislature didn’t have to order me convert to CFLs. The EPA didn’t have to prohibit the manufacture of incandescents. It just makes sense. How many politicians does it take to change a light bulb? In my house, the answer is “none — the market already took care of it.”

Interestingly, the lobbying pressure for state-mandated change doesn’t seem to be coming from environmentalists. CFLs sell themselves and the global transition from incandescents is well under weigh. If every environmentally friendly change was this easy, greens could sit back, sip their organic soy smoothies, and just watch the earth save itself.

No, the pressure is coming from — big business! For all the criticism of environmentalism’s “precautionary principle,” nobody’s as cautious as a corporate director. Companies like Philips don’t like the risks associated with a complete technology change like the one we’re seeing with incandescents to CFLs. It costs money to refit manufacturing facilities. They’re afraid of making such investments, and then possibly losing market share — however temporarily — to companies that continue to service the “cheap incandescent” segment of the market. So, they’re trying to have that segment eliminated and impose the same refitting costs imposed on their competitors.

Keep an eye on the incandescent-to-CFL transition. It’s a microcosm of the larger paradigm shift in which market advocates increasingly find themselves allied with their old foes — the environmentalists — against their old allies in big business.