Philips has noticed that the light bulb is quickly becoming the icon of old technology and repulsively low energy efficiency. This week for example, Australia’s Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull unveiled his plan to ditch the classic light bulb and have every Ozzie home lit by compact fluorescent light (CFL) by 2009. The very next day, his Belgian colleague Bruno Tobback embraced the initiative and he now wants to make the bulb an issue for the next Belgian government after the elections in June.

The idea to ‘Ban the Bulb’ gained new impetus early this month, when Dr. Matt Prescott published his column “Light Bulbs: Not such a bright idea” on the BBC website. Prescott is director of banthebulb.org, an online campaign encouraging greater energy efficiency.

“Energy-saving light bulbs have been available for 30 years,” writes Prescott, “they are quick and easy to use, require five times less electricity to do the same job, cut greenhouse gas emissions by 60-70%, and save users approximately 10 Euros per bulb each year, and yet they have not caught on.”

The reason, Prescott argues, is that although the lifetime savings are phenomenal (188 Euros for a 20 Watt CFL bulb over its 15,000 hour lifetime), the consumer only sees the purchase price at the supermarket.

“It’s time for the world’s governments to intervene in the market,” Prescott says. Governments could tax the classic bulb, simply ban them and wait until they are extinct, or they could give CFL bulbs away for free to the poor. How many legislators does it take to change a light bulb, you might ask?

Still, banning the bulb is no laughing matter. Because if we cannot even switch over to better light bulbs, how are we ever going to let go of fossil fuels, buy smaller cars or insulate our houses better? It is often said that stricter environmental rules will spark innovation. Now let’s send the trusted bulb to the bin and see if it really works.