Significant energy savings

A very simple thing that everyone can do to help the environment is to switch their incandescent light bulbs to compact fluorescent (CFL) and dimmable fluorescents bulbs. In my house, we replaced 14 65-watt incandescent flood lights with 15-watt fluorescent floods. With all lights on, that's a savings of 700 watts! And the fluorescents are just as bright after a few minutes of being turned on. Seven of our floods are dimmable, making the enery savings even more significant for those when they are dimmed. The technology for CFL's has improved to the point where the color temperature of the bulbs is almost indiscernable from incandescents.

CFL's have a life of 10 to 13-times that of incandescents,  and only take about a year to pay for themselves.

If you could just get everyone on your block or in your building to switch even 50% of their lighting, the energy savings would be significant. Your personal savings would also be impressive. For example, a 75-watt incandescent over 10,000 hours would cost almost $70 as compared with a 20-watt CFL at about $24.