Well.. let me debunk a couple issues:

Regular bulbs use more energy. But CFLs — fluorescent bulbs — have a small amount of mercury and can’t just go in the trash. Plus, they’re made in CHINA and have to be transported here at what energy/carbon cost?

Lucky for everyone, the Home Depot is actually starting a CFL recycling program.  Oh, and just about anything these days is made in China.

Plastic bottles in the landfill are bad, but they can be recycled. So you shouldn’t duck your head in shame at the market if you buy a case now and then, as long as you recycle.

They might be able to be recycled, but they're also made with a specific toxin.  When these bottles are recycled, especially if made into fabrics, the process can release the toxin into the environment.  We should be using as few plastic bottles and containers as possible.

Geez, I was just thinking about this....there's too many culprits to mention.  We are an OVER consumer nation, who can hardly cut back on "stuff" that ends up in landfills.  Just one example......McDonald's Happy Meal plastic toys....I throw 'em away, and I know I'm not the only one.  Now it's gotten to the point we don't get them anymore, since they're useless pieces of plastic anyway....

But there's so much other stuff.....ARRRGH!

My lovely county (Saint Joseph County, Indiana; home of Notre Dame)that I live in took a progressive step in recycling.  They passed an ordinance basically forcing us all to recycle.  They gave us all these quaint bins ; and we're asked to put all paper and plastics into them.  The charge the county  passes on to customers is about $4.00 a month.  It's mandatory and those who actually have refused to pay have been sued! A little much but this little county of 270,000 is recylcling just about everything.  The program has been successful so far and the county is going to provide even larger 64 gallon bins in a couple months.  What was a huge incovinience and uproar is now a part of normal life. 

I use regular el cheapo light bulbs and plastic trash bags. My ultimate goal is to have a Bob Lanier-sized (22EEEEE) carbon footprint.

Buy American. Drive a '71 Dodge Dart with 300,000 miles on the engine, which has passed smog due to the "agreeability" of your brother-in-law's repair shop.

Cfl's do not work well or at all, with dimmers.

Great column, Lois.  I've found myself in the same boat wondering which of the conflicting information re enironmental responsibility is to be followed.  It seems everything we do is an environmental damned-if-we-do, damned-if-we-don't choice.  I guess I could read a book about it, but something tells me any book on this subject would end up making me feel the same way National Geographic animal specials do--hopeless and resigned instead of empowered and galvanized.

Power poles and transmission lines are ugly. I'm surprised that a different type of conduit has not been devised to safely carry the juice in a way that better blends with the environment, or goes underground. But, that would cost money, which most of the public and most of the corporations refuse to pay for.

I still find it amazing how few people utilize curbside recycling in this area. The cost is ridiculously low to have all metal cans, paper, cardboard, glass and plastics picked up every other week. I still see throughout the neighborhoods, garbage cans stacked to overflowing every week and remnants from the pick-ups litter the alleys and streets. I see so much garbage on the roadsides and throughout this city it looks like the place where space and time forgot. Bakersfield truly is one of the dirtiest and most wasteful cities I have ever seen. Most people just don't care. 

Fresno and Visalia aren't any better, Adam. It seems like the majority of Valley residents feel more at home if there's trash around.

Another little recycling tip for everyone. It you find yourself consistently running out of space in your yard waste toter, you can get a second green toter from the city. They do have to come out and look to see if you have a big enough yard for it, but it is free if they approve it. That's much better than tossing the extra into the brown toter like several of my friends had been doing before I told them to call the waste department.

Recycling takes energy. Recycling those bottles instead of just buying a good water filtration system for your tap is silly. They are less than $100 and take 10 minutes to install.

Well, the other thing about CFLs vs. regular lights is that if you burn 300% more coal (which contains mercury) to power your bulb, you're going to actually put more mercury in the air by using a regular bulb than you would using your CFLs for skeet: http://www.popularmechanics...

About 50 percent of the electricity produced in the U.S. is generated by coal-fired power plants. When coal burns to produce electricity, mercury naturally contained in the coal releases into the air. In 2006, coal-fired power plants produced 1,971 billion kilowatt hours (kwh) of electricity, emitting 50.7 tons of mercury into the air—the equivalent amount of mercury contained in more than 9 billion CFLs (the bulbs emit zero mercury when in use or being handled).

Approximately 0.0234 mg of mercury—plus carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide—releases into the air per 1 kwh of electricity that a coal-fired power plant generates. Over the 7500-hour average range of one CFL, then, a plant will emit 13.16 mg of mercury to sustain a 75-watt incandescent bulb but only 3.51 mg of mercury to sustain a 20-watt CFL (the lightning equivalent of a 75-watt traditional bulb). Even if the mercury contained in a CFL was directly released into the atmosphere, an incandescent would still contribute 4.65 more milligrams of mercury into the environment over its lifetime.

Murphy, they don't work with dimmers unless you get one designed to.  They are pretty pricey, but if you have to have it, you can.  I prefer just having a second light or two in the room.

I'm feeling embarrassingly green at the moment.  Like woof, I hate Happy Meal toys.  Usually, we just ask them not to put them in our bag if we go through fast food.  Not only does it turn into a midnight, stumbling hazard, but I'm not a big fan of playing with toys while you eat. 

We let the kids handle the plastics and aluminum cans and cardboard.  They collect the cans and plastics and they get the money (usually only $20 or so every six months), but it's enough for them to buy a treat.  I've always recycled aluminum and cardboard so it's no big thing. 

Where I start to feel "embarrassingly green", in response to this post, is when I admit to having four or five canvas bags for groceries.  I love them.  For one, they don't cut my fingers (or a child's fingers) like the plastic bags do.  And, they don't rip (like paper and plastic tend to do if there are cans or sharp cardboard boxes in the bag).  We throw them in the wash every month with the kitchen towels.  I'm also a composter (on a very small scale).   I have a plastic can with dirt, veggie and fruit rinds, and a sand.  If you do it right, there's no smell and we use it on our backyard produce garden (it takes some practice though and I'm still no brave enough to go large scale).  We conserve on laundry soap by not adding it to every load.  It's amazing how much detergent residue stays on your clothes between washes.  If you don't believe me, then put clothes in without soap and open the lid after the agitation cycle.  You'll see plenty of suds.  And, I have to admit that we have the kids refill water bottles from the Britta.  Rather than buy bottles of Gatorade, we have a little funnel that the kids use to put a bit in their water bottles (if they want it).  Shake it up and it's just as good as the pre-prepared bottles and less expensive.  Where I am horrible at my green skills is on electricity.  I can't handle the heat and will run the air as much as need be.  We use fans and stuff, too.  Like someone else said, it's definitely a case of what you're willing to trade.

I'd also add that you can easily go green by eating less meat.

Here is a link from NPR detailing how ungreen meat consumption is  Rising Demand for Meat Takes Toll on Environment .

Here is a link about grocery bags from the Today Show.  According to NBC’s Today Show Americans use 100 billion plastic bags per year. Manufacturing these plastic bags is like dumping 12 million barrels of oil down the drain, because that is how much oil is needed to manufacture these bags. In most cases these bags are used only once then thrown away. Currently only 5% of all plastic bags get recycled. The rest end up in landfills or dumped in the oceans. It is estimated that there are 46,000 pieces of plastic floating in every square mile of the ocean. If every American family reused just one plastic bag during every trip to the store it would keep 10 billion new bags from being needed. This would result in saving enough fuel to power 50,000 cars for a year.  Today Show-Paper or Plastic

Hey possummomma - I have access to the most amazing thing ever - it's called soapnuts.  They're a nut grown in portions of Southeast Asia that have been used for thousands of years to clean things.  We use them here at the house instead of laundry detergent and they work just as good, if not better!  I hate using wikipedia.. but it gives a good idea:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...

If you're interested in trying some out, let me know - I'll get you a free sample.  I have connections with an importer, so if you like them, I could sell them for an excellent deal.

•  
•  The CFL bulbs are ugly and the light is harsh.  I'll stockpile enough of the old bulbs to last until congress figures out that mercury from the CFL's is  getting into our water and food supply. 
• I only drink tap water.  Who knows where  bottled water is really coming from.  At least I can track down the source of my tap water.
• Plastic or paper?    As I said in the sounding board article on this subject, why the big brouhaha over paper or plastic carry home bags when the packing that the food comes in wastes a ridiculous amount of paper and plastic.   Why not a congressional bill limiting the amount of empty space a box of cereal can have.
•   Transmission lines are going to cross pristine country in any case.  Why not at least have them localized in small sections of a city or rural area where they can serve all the inhabitants of that section?

• The CFL bulbs are ugly and the light is harsh.  I'll stockpile enough of the old bulbs to last until congress figures out that mercury from the CFL's is  getting into our water and food supply. 

Give me a break.. mercury from CFL's are not getting into our water or food supplies.

• Plastic or paper?    As I said in the sounding board article on this subject, why the big brouhaha over paper or plastic carry home bags when the packing that the food comes in wastes a ridiculous amount of paper and plastic.   Why not a congressional bill limiting the amount of empty space a box of cereal can have.

I completely agree that packaging for ANY product is ridiculous and should be limited.  At the same time, that doesn't mean I'm going to ignore the issue of what kind of bag I'll use to transport my groceries.  Both paper and plastic are bad. Paper takes up more space in the landfill, and takes just as long to biodegrade as plastic.  Plastic is made from oil, among all the other issues you already know about.

Yeah, I guess I'll just be an environmental slob for now.  I do some of the good deeds but not all.  What can I say?  You guys got me beat.

 Give me a break.. mercury from CFL's are not getting into our water or food supplies.

But mercury from coal-fired power plants *IS*.

Johnburnssucks, why do you still have to smog a '71 Dodge, aren't you exempt?  I don't have to smog my '68 Karmann Ghia .  doesn't it change on a yearly  

Well I just looked it up before posting and Dean Florez was gonna repeal the pre-'76 smog exemption.  Did that go through? Because I hadn't heard anything about it.

When my ten-year-old torchiere died a couple months ago, I went out and bought a new lamp at Target. It has five stalks, and I can turn on two, three or all five bulbs. I find this works just fine as a dimmer. If I need a more precise amount of light, I can just move one of the stalks to face toward or away from me.

Given the heat that a torchiere throws off, I imagine I made a decent slash in my winter energy usage there.

Citybeat, make sure you are using the appropriate shaped bulbs in that 5 stalk floor lamp or it can be a fire hazard. Even using the correct bulbs, mine has discolored from the heat over the years. Mine is labeled as requiring type B bulbs, which are like fat chandelier bulbs with a normal bulb base. Regular incandescent bulbs are type A bulbs and can get too close to the shades in a lamp designed for type B bulbs, causing heat related issues (and they do put off quite a bit of heat). You can get type B bulbs at Target though; just look in the ceiling fan/chandelier bulb section. I use GE Reveal 60BM (60 for 60W, B for type B shape, M for medium base) bulbs.

That, my chandelier and my garage opener are the only incandescent bulbs left in the house. Even the ceiling fans have CFL now. It's a whole lot cheaper to run (my primary motive) and modern CFLs are nowhere near as harsh as the old ones. I can detect fluorescent flicker pretty quickly when others don't notice it (particularly an issue at the office when it's hard to get a bulb replaced when you're the only one noticing the flicker). These do not appear to flicker like the old ones used to. I resisted CFL for a long while because of my concern over the flicker and it seems to be a non-issue now.

Florida, I sent you a message.  I'm interested.

Europe Tells Airlines to Pay for Emissions

BRUSSELS — The European Union reached a landmark agreement Thursday to cap emissions from aircraft, raising the stakes in an increasingly ferocious battle with the United States over how to regulate global greenhouse gases.

In the first requirement of its kind, all airlines arriving or leaving from airports in the European Union would be required to buy pollution credits beginning in 2012, joining other industrial polluters that trade in the European emissions market. That includes non-European carriers like American Airlines and Singapore Airlines.

Including airlines in the system is the boldest move yet by Europe to stamp its environmental policies on the rest of the world.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008...