Going Green In Small Steps

According to a February 2008 article at The Christian Science Monitor:

The incandescent bulb is an energy hog. Just 5 percent of the electricity it uses goes to light the bulb; the other 95 percent is heat. Improving light output and lowering heat output would reduce demand for electricity from coal-fired power plants, which emit carbon dioxide. CO2, most climate scientists say, is the single largest contributor to global warming.

Lowering energy consumption one household at a time seems a daunting task. However, replacing less efficient incandescent bulbs with more efficient bulbs seems the easiest place to begin reducing consumption. Because banning of the incandescent light bulb is inevitable, it is both prudent and cost efficient to buy a green bulb.

According to the Energy Star Government Website:

If every American home replaced just one light bulb with an ENERGY STAR qualified bulb, we would save enough energy to light more than 3 million homes for a year, more than $600 million in annual energy costs, and prevent greenhouse gases equivalent to the emissions of more than 800,000 cars.

Now imagine the savings if every light bulb in every American house was replaced with and upgraded to compact fluorescent light (CFL). While there are numerous other strategies for going green, such as avoiding excessive automotive idling, avoiding hard braking, and speeding, replacing the lights in one’s own household would appear to the easiest manner to contribute to American Energy Independence.

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