Thanks to Gizmodo, we know what Real Americans think of the incandescent light bulb ban:
“It’s yet another government attack on civilization,” De Coster writes about the bulb ban in an email. “It’s a condemnation of our standard of living, and an attack on human comfort, with the ban of one of civilization’s stellar inventions.”
But we know that at least some Real Americans also like IKEA, because cheap, modular furniture is too convenient to pass up, no matter how hard you try. So it may come as a disappointment that IKEA is taking sides in the light bulb wars: The Sweden-based store is saying that by 2016, it will only sell LED bulbs.
Because IKEA is so fricking ubiquitous, this is actually a big deal: The more people they force as part of a government conspiracy against freedom encourage to choose efficient lighting, the more energy the world will save. LEDs are the most efficient of the incandescent alternatives, according to Bloomberg, beating out CFLs and halogen.
IKEA’s sustainability guy told Bloomberg that, actually, energy efficiency isn’t entirely the point: “It’s the whole functionality from color temperature through to strength and durability,” he said.
Also, we imagine, the fact that both Europe and the U.S. have banned incandescents, and LEDs can be sold at a much higher price point. Still, we’re all for people lighting up dark spaces by methods other than heating a tiny piece of metal until it glows. (Which is how incandescents work. Barbaric, really.)
