I am sure many of you are aware of the Compact Fluorescent Lightbulbs (CFLs) on the market these days. They are the cool looking spiral light bulbs that can save you money on your electric bill. They are also more expensive than your regular incandescent light bulbs. Below is a picture to help you see the benefits of replacing your incandescent lightbulbs with CFLs.

The biggest disadvantage, from my view, is that the CFLs contain a small amount of mercury. This means that they need to be disposed of properly. A Lighter Footstep has a great article about how to find places to do the recycling.

This is a GREAT first step to reduce YOUR footprint.

I just want to point out two new things here in the Meeshmellow World. First: As evidence by the post about carbon footprints, you can see there is a new category around here. Greenery will be used to pass earth-friendly info into your life. I hope that you find it interesting and hope you find time to comment on your tree hugging ways.

Secondly, Pebbles has her own blog over on the right now. It is called Pug’s Eye View. I will provide little snippets about her there as frequently as possible.

Keep on reading!

I realize that it appears that I don’t have strong opinions about the things going on in the world. I rarely comment on politics, religion, or world news. Even though I am a passionate scientist, I don’t articulate what specifically I am passionate about. So today, I thought I would share with you one science-y thing I truly believe in.

Carbon Footprint.

Now, whether or not global warming truly exists, everyone has their opinions. And how much one person’s carbon footprint affects the overall climate might also be debatable. But, if you can be doing things to make your impact on the world lighter, wouldn’t you?

The University of California, Berkeley has developed a tool that will help you calculate your carbon footprint. What I find interesting about this tool is that it compares your footprint with the US average footprint, the footprint of a household of equal size and income in the US, and the World footprint. I will admit that the calculator is pretty detailed (it will ask you what you spend on dairy, grains, meat, beverages, and other grocery items per month) but the more details you give it, the better the estimate is.

If you care to know, our household footprint is 29, which is about 34% below the US average. We are however, well above the World average. Are there things I can change? I am sure. To be honest when it came to determining how much we spend on clothes and other commodities, I gave up. I didn’t have the budgetary information on hand.

One disadvantage to the calculator is that it doesn’t ask you if you are buying organic products or if you use cloth bags. I would imagine that these types of things would also affect your footprint.

Take the test, and let me know how you score!