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Civility in critiquing the ideas of others is no vice. Rudeness in defending your own ideas is no virtue.


Mon 18 Dec 2006, 10:14 AM
My daughter is home from the Mexican border (she spent the last semester living in Ciudad Juarez and taking classes in both El Paso and Ciudad Juarez, and so crossing the border practically every day), and actually staying here for a few weeks, something which has not happened since she started college.  It has shifted routines a bit, but it has also brought a fresh perspective and energy to the household.This past weekend, that has meant buying Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs and placing them in many of the frequently used light fixtures inside and outside the house.  We have always been a fairly energy conscious family, but this is something we had never gotten around to doing.

According to the EnergyStar website:
If every American home replaced just one light bulb with an ENERGY STAR, we would save enough energy to light more than 2.5 million homes for a year and prevent greenhouse gases equivalent to the emissions of nearly 800,000 cars.
We replaced twenty.  Time to invite Al Gore over, I guess.  There are some very slight differences, such as the bulb hesitating a fraction of a second before turning on, and taking a minute or two to get up to full brightness, but otherwise it seems to make no difference at all, and the 75 watt equivalent bulbs take only 20 watts of power.  We also replaced some 100 watt light bulbs with the 75 watt equivalents (we really don't like the place so bright, but the previous owners did), so they now take 20% of the power and look just about the same.  It feels good to do something, even if it is not a huge something.

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