A Bright Idea

Light bulbs. It's hard to imagine something so simple and commonly used in our everyday lives can have an impact on your wallet and the environment. If you haven't heard, CFLs (Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs) are rapidly replacing their inefficient predecessor, the incandescent light bulb. Some CFL facts according to Energy Star:

• If every American home replaced just one of their light bulbs with an Energy Star qualified CFL, the energy saved would be enough to light more than 3 million homes for a year, more than $600 million in annual energy costs, and prevent greenhouse gases equivalent to 800,000 cars

• While the price of CFLs are generally more expensive than incandescent light bulbs, the average CFL pays for itself in about 6 months and will save you about $30 over its life time

• The average lifetime of a Energy Star qualified CFL is approximately 8,000 hours
• In 2007, the amount of energy saved from Americans switching to Energy Star qualified CFLs is enough to power all the homes in a city the size of Washington, D.C. for 30 years
• Changing to CFLs has the potential of removing greenhouse gases equivalent to planting 2.85 million acres of trees or taking 2 million cars off of the road each year

This information was found on the Energy Star website which is run by the U.S Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Department of Energy. The government has been encouraging Americans to switch to Energy Star CFLs for some time now because of the benefits not only to the consumer but also the environment. As mentioned in “Adoption and Consumption of Fashion” in Fashion-ology, a style can be acknowledged as fashion if it is recognized by certain people. In fashion, style is recognized by the gate keepers, celebrities, other designers, etc. When it comes to something that is mutually beneficial to society and the individual, having the government recognize and promote it greatly increases awareness and desire for that product.

Sources:

http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=cfls.pr_cfls

Kawamura, Yuniya. Fashion-ology: An Introduction to Fashion Studies. New York: Berg Publishers

Images from: http://renaissanceronin.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/cfl.jpg

http://www.istockphoto.com/file_thumbview_approve/5339490/2/istockphoto_5339490-compact-fluorescent-lightbulb-cfl.jpg

Samantha Ng

Blog #4