Something you may not know, natural incandescent lights can made to out last fluorescents. Why not legislate for that if you must. If you actually do care about the environment, not to mention human well being, ban fluorescent lights! I’m starting to think this really is just about controlling the individual.

I do think there are other better proposals that could be made that would lead to the same sort of end (eg, LEDs as we’ve mentioned, or encouraging peopel to use CFLsin their homes if they’re able to). But I think replacing incandescents with CFLs without it first being clear that new CFLs don’t cause these problems (or developing ones that don’t) is irresponsible. At the moment, that is far from obvious, and that’s why I think this is bad legislation.

I will be happy to be proved wrong in this. I would love to see a way in which this legislation could be made workable.

What I said to you was that things can be improved by people with legitimate objections and clarifications coming forward as part of the standard process and helping to make the legislation better.

What part of this am I getting wrong? Thinking this piece of legislation is unworkable is also part of the standard process. People are allowed to object to legislation without being told they are sitting on the sidelines and crying foul. I did look up information on this legislation and have thought about it, and I have come to the conclusion that it’s bad legislation. If thinking that sometimes some ideas can be mistaken makes me a knee-jerk egalitarian, fine.

I said it would be discriminatory for this legislation to be in force, not for it to be debated.

I’m going to withdraw from this thread since we seem to be talking cross-purposes, and that isn’t getting anywhere in term of the original topic. I’d be happy to discuss further by email if you’d like. The last part of my last post wasn’t about this debate although you seem to have interpreted it that way. I’m sorry to have pissed you off.

Cheers,
IP

In these matters, whether it is lightbulbs, minorities, women, or whatever, it’s very easy to sit at the sidelines and cry foul, and to accuse people of making mistakes when they are at least trying out ideas. The real hard work comes in trying to help them make their ideas work, and not going for the knee-jerk response of labeling everything discrimination. In these ambiguous situations, where motives can easily be misjudged, I find that it is better that you give people the benefit of the doubt until you have clearer reasons to think otherwise. I suggest that you (please) try this approach. More good may be achieved in the long run.

-cvj

Re info. There is much more if you google “flourescent lights autism” or “fluorescent lights meniere’s” or variations on that theme.

As I said before, I think it’s irresponsible to introduce legislation before the kinks have been ironed out. There are lots of ways of being more environmentally friendly, but I think this measure is misguided. I would be happy to see initiatives to develop LEDs, and I would be happy to see research into CFLs, or initiatives to encourage people to buy CFLs. But banning the sale of incandescents, when a lot of people report negative effects from them, is irresponsible and discriminatory.

On a slight tangent…

I know you mean well, but I hope you can see that those of us who are affected by this on a day to day basis can’t afford to be so confident. This is for the same reasons as I can’t afford to regard sexism or racism with an attitude to the effect of “Oh, things will get sorted out. Anyway, if discrimination happens, there are legal recourses.” Because that’s sort of…beside the point. Whether we have legal recourses is not the immediate point — discrimination shouldn’t be happening (and in some cases, it’s legal, eg it’s completely legal in many states to discriminate against mothers in employment, so we don’t always have the legal recourses that we should.). And when it’s something that profoundly affects your life, we can’t always relax and assume it will be sorted out, because change only comes about when people kick up a fuss. That’s why I have blogged about things people can actually do about sexism, for example. You’ve also blogged about minorities in science, and you do stuff about minorities and involvement in culture and the public sphere etc. So may you can understand why it comes across as a little bit condescending and indifferent to be told that things will just sort themselves out (I know that you didn’t mean it that way, but that’s how it can come across).

That’s off topic (and is more general than the lightbulb issue), but I hope you understand the point I’m making.

\end{threadjack}

Cheers,
IP

Thanks for (finally) sending some information along. I’ll have a look. As I said before, I’m keeping an open mind. I’d like to encourage you to be so too.

As for availability of CFLs in corner shops in Edinburgh….. I believe we are discussing California State law, not laws in Scotland. Edinburgh is not in California. The KHz CFLs can be found in any store selling bulbs here, at least in major metropolitan areas, and I believe part of the point of the legislation is to increase availability further, so that people can have the choice to make, and learn that the bulbs are not the evil things people so readily claim, based on their memories of the old strip lights. Prices will probably begin to equalize as well.

It is a test case. Nobody is suggesting that suddenly everybody in Scotland will have to do this before the infrastructure is in place, and before the kinks are ironed out. This is how good structures are put in place….. you test it out, you iron out the kinks (with the participation of members of the populace), and then you roll it out to the rest of the world once the prototype has been perfected.

Cheers,

-cvj

It does seem to be the case that the effects of fluorescents can be reduced (not eliminated) by using indirectly fluorescent lights or certain filters or the Irlen method. This doesn’t seem to work for everybody though, and I’ve only been able to find mention of it regarding autistic people.

Clifford:

You’re asking for research that isn’t being done to any large extent. This isn’t “sexy” science and there isn’t much active research on why CFLs affect autistic people and others who are sensitive to them.

If you need “proof” that this is an issue though, you can try reading these (recent) articles that mention sensitivity to fluorescents.

This article by the Autistic Society of Michigan recommends not using fluorescent lights in places that autistic people used. Copyrighted 2002-2006.

The Austitic Society in the UK mentions it too. Page updated in 2005.

Also, you may be advocating the use of CFLs but what most people use *now* and what is easily available are older types of fluorescents. I checked for compact fluorescents in shops the last time I had to change lots of lightbulbs in my flat, and could only find 60Hz energy-savers. Other bulbs may be more widely available in the US, or indeed more specialist shops in the UK, but I’m wondering how widely available the kilohertz CFLs are, when I couldn’t find them in any supermarket in central Edinburgh, or cornershop within walking distance of my flat. As I say, the situation may be very different in the US, but that’s the situation in the UK.

Also, there was some speculation in my posts, but I clearly said that it was possible they could be got around. The rest was not speculation, it’s based on my experience of lots of people I actually know and work with. I work with autistic kids. Bf chairs a charity organisation for people with Meniere’s so I’ve seen a lot of the info they work with (unfortunately not available on the web, but I’m sure you can telephone a Meniere’s organisation help-line and find equivalent info).

I searched for the bill but haven’t been able to find the text since the bill hasn’t yet been presented to the Assembly. I’ll keep checking and when I find it, I will get back to you on this.

All I have tried to point out is that there are issues here and an awful lot of people report having negative effects from fluorescent lights. You can ignore that if you want, and continue to support this bill because there isn’t much research on people sensitive to CFLs and therefore no easily available “proof” that they don’t work. If you do, I don’t see how I’m being harsh in describing your attitude as indifferent. Or you can accept that people who report this sensitivity may be reporting a real problem that ought to be addressed before a state gov bans the sale of accessible lightbulbs.

–IP

It is nice to see that people on that thread you pointed to are at least talking about being constructive and contacting the legislator and informing him about the concerns, etc. This is the right thing to do to help craft improvements in the legislation, as I said above.

As to the indirect lighting issue, I’ve mentioned this a few times, above. I don’t understand why one would stop at a bare bulb in the first place -it is rather garish and ugly whether it be incandescent of fluorescent- but maybe that’s just me.

Cheers.

-cvj

Do CFLs have the same spectrum as the fluorescent lights that were common in public spaces and the like? Looking at mine -this is not a scientific test- I would say no.

Haha… I’m glad I’m not the only one up blogging instead of sleeping! On Ballastexistenz, Axinar points out that even compact fluorescents don’t have a totally smooth spectrum.

Yep, I never could stand those flourescents in the house - no matter how much they try to tweak the coatings, they still have a nasty spike in the green part of the spectrum.

Also, enough people report discomfort from compact fluorescents that I’m not convinced that flicker can be ruled out as a cause. Does anybody know whether aliasing, as I mentioned before, can happen in the human visual system?

Above all, I’m with you, Clifford, in that what we really need is blind testing. LEDs would be a great place to start, because you’ve got total control over their flicker rate, and you can also run them with no flicker at all. It would be so easy to do! If only I were a psychologist with a bunch of fluorescent-sensitive friends!!!

Javik says that new flashlights use halogen bulbs, not incandescent, which would explain why my compact fluorescent bulb looks warmer than my flashlight, even if it isn’t warmer than an incandescent. Javik also says LCD monitors don’t flicker, and don’t give him a headache, but aren’t LCD monitors backlit by fluorescents? Maybe those are only the older ones…

Persephone and this page both say that indirect fluorescent lighting can be better than direct. If that worked consistently, it would be a cheap and simple solution!

However, I’d like to point out that the interview:

(1) took place in 1999;

(2) is not specifically about fluorescent lights, and in the places it mentioned them, makes no mention of what type of fluorescent lights are being discussed - there is no mention of Compact Fluorescent Lights. . Do CFLs have the same spectrum as the fluorescent lights that were common in public spaces and the like? Looking at mine -this is not a scientific test- I would say no. I have the old style long tubes in a strip in part of my kitchen, and I have the new CFLs in other parts of the house. They look very different in terms of quality of light to me. I could be wrong, though. Any data on that?

I repeat that the article is very non-specific, and was also dated 1999. I hope that there are more up to date studies (hopefully, at least some blind tests) on this.

Best,

-cvj

This interview seems to say that color balance — not flicker — is responsible for fluorescent sensitivity in some people. The color of the curly fluorescent in my room looks very warm — warmer, in fact, than the incandescent bulb in my flashlight! — but maybe there are bad features of the spectrum that I can’t see.

This page seems to say that the fastest human neurons can fire no more than 1000 times per second. Since Thomas says new fluorescents flicker more than 10,000 times per second, it seems to me that people who are sensitive to the new bulbs cannot be responding directly to the high-frequency flicker. HOWEVER, the high-frequency flicker could be getting aliased to a lower frequency that does irritate the brain.

If I understand correctly, the reason that incandescent bulbs don’t flicker is that they don’t cool down noticeably in the 1/240th of a second that it takes for the alternating current in your wall to go from high to zero. Why isn’t it possible to coat fluorescent bulbs in a glow-in-the-dark material that would keep them glowing continuously? It wouldn’t eliminate flicker completely, but it should reduce it.

I suspect that people are responding more to their memory of the old 60Hz flicker bulbs.

If that were true, it would be very bad… it would mean that no amount of technological development could make fluorescent lighting feasible for people who were sensitive to the old, slow bulbs.

This is hardly the concrete basis upon which to declare that someone is “indifferent to equality and access issues”, wouldn’t you say?

Best,

-cvj

A quick google will turn up a bunch of articles, as I said before. Not many of them explicitely mention the age of the lightbulbs, but most of the articles are recent, and I assume they are discussing new-ish lightbulbs

As regards the kind of light produced by fluorescents, there ought to be a way of getting around this. Depending on the reason for one’s sensitivity to them, lamp shades etc may or may not work (they help me when I’m migraine-y, although they don’t make any difference for my boyfriend, and I have no idea what effect this has on people with autism). This is fixable in people’s own homes, but not in public places where lamp shades aren’t generally used, so it’s still an access issue with regard to public places. Perhaps this can be gotten around, but it hasn’t been gotten around yet.

As regards autistic people, many of the articles my google search turned up mentioned that new bulbs flicker less and are therefore better for autistic people than old bulbs, but that the new ones still cause problems.

–IP

So to the data:

(1) have you read the proposed legislation that you have declared to be bad legislation? I have not. Can you point me to a link on the web, please? I have listened to the proposer’s interviews on the subject and he sounds like a reasonable guy. He mentioned a number of exceptions to be made. Perhaps he’s already made some provision for problems of the sort you mention. If not, would it not be a good idea to write to him and tell him about it, supplying him with data to help him improve the legislation?

(2) You say:

It’s not that people can *see* the flickering, it’s that they notice the *effects* of the flickering (eg, on eye-tracking for visual depth cues). I’ve done the google again and most of the articles discuss fluorescent lights, not just the old ones. My bf has tried new fluorescents and they have the same problems as old fluorescents.

Once again, it has to be said (as others have) that several tens of thousands of times per second is how the new designs (available to all) flicker. I don’t think that the visual system can detect that at all, directly or indirectly (the “effects” you refer to). I suspect that people are responding more to their memory of the old 60Hz flicker bulbs. Perhaps I am wrong. I’ve asked for more information from you. You have not supplied it. It is not enough to quote the case of your boyfriend, as unfortunate as things may well be. Using your boyfriend as primary evidence is akin to the time when -as an argument against legislation based on the fact that smoking is bad for your health- people would bring up their Uncle Bill who smoked ten packs a day and lived to age 150.

You have a choice here. You can take the easy route and call me insensitive and an oppressor, or you can use this as an opportunity to make your argument stronger - please point me/us to data, informed discussions, studies, etc., about the neurological effects of the new bulbs’ 10+ KHz flickering. I’ve tried to find some, and I cannot. Better yet, point it out to the people proposing the legislation so that if they have not already considered that and made provision, they can do so. This is how democracy works, I think.

This way of carrying out the discussion (supplying data) is better than the approach you’ve taken so far.

As regards the spectrum. I’m puzzled why this is not easily fixed with a filter, as we do with lights typically anyway, using various decorative shades, chandeliers, glass domes, etc. Could it be that your boyfriend is having problems with the spectrum, (and you , as you say you get migraines from white light) - problems easily fixed by not using the bare bulb as a light source?

Once again, I’m sorry that your boyfriend has a problem, and yes, I could be wrong….. but …. data…..

It’s not fair to accuse someone of being insensitive because they ask you for concrete information, and to make sure that you have command of the facts of the matter.

Best,

-cvj

It’s not that people can *see* the flickering, it’s that they notice the *effects* of the flickering (eg, on eye-tracking for visual depth cues). I’ve done the google again and most of the articles discuss fluorescent lights, not just the old ones. My bf has tried new fluorescents and they have the same problems as old fluorescents.

Also, some people have problems with fluorescent lights because they produe a whiter or bluer light than incandescent bulbs. Bright lights are a problem for many autistic people. This could maybe be improved in future, but at the moment, it’s a problem.

Clifford:

This piece of legislation, if it passes, *will* affect access. I can’t see how this particular piece of legislation can be tweaked so as not to produce access problems. Other kinds of legislation (eg, for the state to subsidise development of LED lights for the general market) might be workable, but they are not what is being proposed. Supporting this particular initiative, well-meaning as it may be, will present problems for people with disabilities. If one wants to see energy-efficiency legislation that doesn’t pose these problems, this proposal will have to be scrapped and rewritten completely. If someone comes up with some particularly brilliant way around this that I haven’t thought of, more power to them. But I can’t see one.

It may be the fluorescent lights will one day be improved somehow, so that they don’t pose these problems. However, until they are, I think it would be irresponsible to ban incandescents, even with the time gap the proposal suggests.

What makes you confident that this will work out? How do you suggest that other people’s needs be worked into this to make this proposal non-discriminatory?

–IP

How is engaging in a discussion with you, discussing methods of compromise, and asking for more information, etc, to be considered indifference?

I’m saddened by this. Friends should be able to disagree on approaches without being labelled by each other in this way.

-cvj

For the record, the fact that fluorescent lights produce a whiter light than incandescent bulbs also causes problems for me when I have migraine, or pre-migraine type headaches.

Clifford:

I think it’s a shame that people who are relatively privileged allow that privilege to make them complacent towards the needs of other people. The current situation with regard to access for disabled people is totally inadequate. If this proposal gets anywhere, it will be more inadequate. So saying “it will sort itself out” is something only the able-bodied can afford to say.

You aren’t usually so indifferent to equality and access issues.

–IP.

I’d like to see a lot more development into LED lights. From what I understand, they are energy efficient, and could be far more inclusive for people who are sensitive to fluorescent lights.

IP.

-cvj

IP, have you looked into white LED’s? They are expensive, but should be continuous.