Bill Clinton's Light Bulb Moment

Giving: How Each of Us Can Change the World
“Giving: How Each of Us Can Change the World” (Bill Clinton)

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From last weekend's Sunday NYT:

Bill Clinton - Philanthropy - New York Times:

Jonathan Rauch writing in The Atlantic about former President Bill Clinton’s approach to philanthropy:

Clinton says he has been concerned about climate change for years, but that a hostile Congress and cheap oil prevented him from doing much about it when he was in office. Out of office, one day he decided to replace every light bulb in his house with a compact fluorescent. But when he went to his local hardware store in Chappaqua, N.Y., he couldn’t find bulbs in a lot of the shapes and sizes he needed. “So I literally picked up the phone and called Jeff Immelt” — the C.E.O. of General Electric — “and I said, ‘I’m trying to be a good customer. I’m trying to buy American, support G.E. I like your eco-initiatives. But I can’t fill half these sockets. What am I going to do?’ And he said, ‘Well, make me a bigger market, and I’ll make whatever bulbs you want.’ ”

It’s a charming story, if somewhat tarnished by the fact that, through a spokesman, Immelt said he had no recollection of the conversation. In any event, a light bulb had lit up in the ex-president’s head. “It struck me that we were in the same sort of deal,” he says, “where we have very low knowledge of the economic options among consumers, drastic undercapitalization, and a completely disorganized market.”

We have mostly halogen lights, and are still looking for low-energy fluorescent replacements that will fit into the light cans.....

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This page contains a single entry by swanksalot published on September 11, 2007 11:23 AM.

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