Mercury is bad for you. You shouldn't touch it. If you breathe it in, that's even worse. So it's surprising that it's used in the new energy-efficient fluorescent light bulbs. They're brighter and last longer than ordinary light bulbs, but the mercury means they're also potentially more harmful. It seems like this is evidence of a growing "half-measure" trend in the fight to combat energy inefficiency.
There are a lot of steps we've been taking as a society to clean up our act, environmentally speaking. These include moving from gas-powered vehicles to gas-electric hybrids, gas-electric-hydrogen tribrids, and cars that run on ethanol. Many of these measures have faults of their own.
We place so much emphasis on doing clean, environmentally-friendly work, and as of yet there is still no clear-cut technology that is pure and widely available. To save energy, we risk our own safety with things like mercury-infused light bulbs. Oh well. I guess we're just taking baby steps toward a cleaner, safer tomorrow.
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