Planting bulbs for the future

After a week up in Montreal, where due to unseasonably warm weather everyone was going on about global warming, this article suggesting replacing normal light bulbs with new incandescent bulbs caught my eye. The concept at the end that products should be taxed according to their relative environmental impact is something that I’ve thought about before – a t-shirt that ‘costs’ 20c to make in a near third world country due to low labor costs should be taxed in ‘first’ world countries according to social and global impact worldwide, as well as for environmental impact. So, for example, in a country where the society is very poor and the incentive to make make cheap t-shirts is high that t-shirt should be taxed a ‘social tax’ that is transmitted back into programs in that country to ease poverty, consequently a t-shirt created here, that supplies local jobs and uses environmentally friendly methods may cost $2 to make, but would get a tax break on the shelf. In theory this is what American Apparel, the hipster’s gap, is trying to do – but a great idea is tainted by other issues with their staffing policies as indicated by their advertising.