Last night, many businesses and cities participated in “Earth Hour”. Here are just a few listed in an article found at “News and Views Cheap Flights dot com”“

I was particularly amused by the Las Vegas contingent’s effort to signal the imminent peril the world finds itself in by shutting down outside lighting while keeping all of the inside casino lights blazing away at full power. This prompted me to wonder if the casino’s use the new energy saving compact fluorescent bulbs. If they do, and they are operating 24 hours a day, how to they mitigate the hazardous mercury vapor inhalation risk to the public whenever a bulb breaks for whatever reason, drop, manufacturer defect, rupturing from overheating, etc.

That got me wondering about buildings such as Boston’s John Hancock Tower or the Prudential Center on several levels. If the building owners and building businesses are sincere about saving energy to save the planet, I wonder if they would consider shutting the building down completely for one month out of the year to promote conservation. In keeping with conservation, would the business owners agree to direct their employees to remain at home and to disconnect themselves from all power grid sources in exchange for full pay and benefits? I wonder if these same business owners would also require their employees to avoid using anything that requires gasoline, natural gas or coal (such as for home heating or cooking on a grill) as a prerequisite for getting full pay and benefits? Would the owners of these buildings agree to allow tenants to skip paying rent for the time they are closed down acting out of a patriotic desire to do their part in the war on global warming? Would government’s such as the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, which authorize the shutdown of lights on Commonwealth property (owned by the people of Massachusetts) consider ordering a full month of powered vehicle bans to keep cars, buses, trains and even airliners from “wasting” energy and contributing to the global pollution that is melting the ice caps?

Are buildings, such as the Prudential Center or the John Hancock Tower using compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs), and if so, how do they handle an incident when one of their lamps break? If they do not currently using CFLs, what policies do they have in development for dealing with a toxic atmospheric release of neurotoxic mercury when the law requires them to make the change? Do they even have policies for dealing with such a break? How do they mitigate against new hazards brought about by people walking through an area where a bulb broke before an internal housekeeping hazmat team arrives for cleanup? Are they willing to cut away chunks of carpet each time a bulb breaks, or are they going to remove all carpeting and move to easier to clean marble flooring or something similar?

In a hospital, if there is a blood or other bodily fluid spill, it’s fairly easy to spot and common sense would tell you to walk around. But blood and other fluids, as a rule, do not have an airborne hazardous component such as that caused by mercury vapors. This hazard must be significant if the government and the bulb manufactures recommend airing out the room with fresh air, naturally cycled, where the breakage occurred for 15 minutes at a minimum. How does one do that in an energy efficient building where the windows cannot be opened and where, in the event of a breakage, it is policy to shut down all air conditioning systems to avoid spreading the hazard into the duct work and throughout more remote spaces? Have you considered the potential cost to your health as a direct result of shopping or doing business in such buildings? Will the fact that the federal government mandates the sole use of CFLs as lighting sources mitigate risk to lawsuits to business as a result of documented toxic mercury exposure?

The “earth hour” program, created and sponsored by the “World Wildlife Fund“is the very group that sued the World Wrestling Federation and force it to change its name to World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) so as not to bring confusion and discredit on the WWF abbreviation. This absurd organization and it’s silly program, as it exists and as it functions, is about as rational and as coherent as President Obama’s war policy in Libya. Pardon me, please. I forgot that the Whitehouse prefers to use the euphemism, “kinetic military action” instead of war, because, well, what’s the fun of being a politician if you have to use plain language and cloak what your say, intend or do in a drape of political correctness and logical blindness?

Alright, this is not funny! Damn it, someone turn the lights back on. Thank CyberPower for having the decency to design, produce and distribute small, yet effective, uninterrupted power supply units. At least I got to finish this article and I hope you find it somewhat illuminating.