Funny-looking bulbs save energy

Let’s talk about those newfangled, curly light bulbs, the compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) you are all seeing around these days.
You might as well get used to them, because a provision in the 2007 energy bill requires that all light-bulbs be 30 percent more energy-efficient starting in 2012. Bye-bye traditional incandescent bulbs ... so sorry Mr. Edison, your invention will be obsolete. But why wait until 2012 when the curly bulb uses 50-80 percent less energy.
If every U.S. household replaced just one incandescent bulb with a CFL, the Environmental Protection Agency estimates that we would reduce global warming pollution by an amount equivalent to taking more than 800,000 cars off the road. If you want me to get more specific, I will. A 26-watt CFL bulb produces the same lumens as a 100-watt incandescent bulb, and assuming that you keep one of those bulbs on for six hours a day, switching to a CFL will save you 126 kilowatt-hours of electricity per year, which translates to 170 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions on average.
Assuming that you have 20 or 30 bulbs throughout your house, replacing them all would reduce your annual CO2 output by 2.3 metric tons, or about 10 percent of the average home’s annual carbon footprint.
But you may not care about your footprint, and, yes those curly things are more expensive, but they last 10 times longer (most of the time ... make sure your bulb has the Energy-star certification, for bulb quality can vary). So, in the long run you will save money on your energy bills. Also frequent on-off cycles can reduce the life of the curly-cues, so target those areas of your home where lights stay on for long periods of time to ensure the most energy savings right away.
There is lots more to say about these funny-looking bulbs, but right now gotta go CFLs — catch flies.