They are all made up hysterical exaggerations.
If you want to waste money, energy, and time, go ahead and continue to be stupid and use incandescent light bulbs. You are allowed to be ignorant in this country.
I don’t like government mandates but that’s another issue. I’m wondering why we don’t hear the same screaming about the florescent tubes that have been in use for decades.
Back in the stone age of my youth I was a garbage man for a while. We used to dump whole dumpsters full of the long tubes in the back of the garbage truck twice a week on days when we picked up at the local power company.
Yes, we are stupid for using a light bulb that costs less than a dollar, puts out better light, and does not cause health issues when broken.
If you switch incandescents off when moving from room to room like I do, it might take a couple of years for me to break even by switching to the CFL bulb. I have a mixture of the regular bulbs and CFL's. I prefer to use the regular bulbs for certain applications. Take for instance a closet light bulb. You'll never recover the cost of replacing a closet bulb with a CFL bulb if your only in the closet for a few minutes a day..
If you want to spend your time bathed in depression-inducing unnatural and unfriendly light bulbs that costs a fortune, go ahead. I'll stick with the much friendlier light spectra emitted by incandescent bulbs, which don't cause nearly the same level of depression.
I rent a house with outdated wiring and for example can’t run the dryer while the AC is on, can’t run the microwave with the AC or dryer on, can’t run the vacuum with any of the aforementioned appliances running. So CFL bulbs work great for my needs. Lower energy consumption=less strain on the wiring.
The added bonus is not having to replace them as often.
Sucks about the mercury though.
The dangers of CFL’s are hardly exaggerated.
Besides the known mercury content of said bulbs, there are documented cases of them catching fire.
http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml11/11001.html
Almost all my lights are CFLs in my home. I do this by choice not mandate. However, I sure as hell do not want the choice to use incandescent bulbs to be taken away from me or anyone else.