Green Options

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I’ve been a a fitness and wellness professional for 18 years and I believe that tools we employ to improve personal health can also be employed for planetary health. Measuring progress through fitness assessment and “proving” that actions are producing results is huge motivator. Seeing empiricle data can help solidify new habits.

Although I am a right-brain, creative type, I enjoy measuring results as much as the next person. This past year, It seemed like everywhere I went, someone was handing me a Compact Fluorescent Light Bulb (CFL) and explaining how this 15-second change will remove CO2 from the air and fight global warming. That is why I got a kick out of One Billion Bulbs.

Altough there are other sites that will calculate your savings if you switch to CFLs, One Billion Bulbs lets you form a group and measure the results of making the switch.

“…Congress is getting close to passing an energy bill that contains a little-known provision designed to phase out the 125-year-old incandescent light bulb in the next four to 12 years.”

I re-watch Al Gore’s acceptance speech again and again – and I always choke back tears. I suppose I choke them back because I’m an Englishman – with that supposed stiff upper lip.

Massive change is his message. Though of course individual action is beneficial, action on a larger scale is what’s needed.

Political will.

Praise then goes to the Irish government who have decided on a complete ban of incandescent light bulbs as of 2009.

This ties in so strongly with Mr Gore’s speech where he demanded – and eloquently too – that change needs to happen.

Now.

Not beleagueredly in a few years.

But now.

So is my government concurrent with regards to light bulbs?

No.

Even if you’ve switched all your bulbs from incandescents to CFLs, it’s still good to practice turning off the lights when you don’t need them to save on energy.

Turning off the lights depends on the bulb. If you still have incandescent bulbs, it is always best to shut the light off when no one is in a room or if you aren’t using the light. Fluorescent lights are a little different, since constantly

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Imagine growing up, going to school, graduating, going to college for a couple years and then getting that magical phone call: "Son, it's time to change the light bulb." You rush home in flurry of excitement and anticipation as your parents show you how to change a light — something you yourself may not do until your own kids are in college. Those times are coming.

Well actually, they're here. But until prices coming

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Kenny Luna may have some help in his quest to get CFLs into the hands of students across the country: nine schools in Southern California. The schools are part of the Alliance to Save Energy's Green Schools program; elementary and high schools in the Alta Loma, Hesperia, and San Bernardino Unified School Districts are all participating

The schools provide students and their families a means to exchange incandescent bulbs with

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By Erica Rowell, Environmental Defense Writer, Editor, ProducerCFL and incandescent bulbs side by side

Quality was spotty in the 70s, but this is a new millennium

Apple computers. Punk. Compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs). What do they have in common? They were introduced in the 1970s and are now back in style.

CFLs have improved dramatically from their inauspicious beginnings. They took a while to come on, flickered as they

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Kenny Luna is the Pied Piper of light bulbs. CFL bulbs, specifically, and he's working his tail off to see to it that every kid in America gets one in their home. Luna is a middle school science teacher from North Babylon, New York, who was so moved by Hurricane Katrina, its devastating aftermath, and connection to global warming, that he decided he had to do something, anything, to fight climate change.

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