18 Seconds

It takes 18 seconds to change a light bulb and 18 seconds to change the world. Ok, I think I can change that light bulb in 17 seconds, what about you?

On February 22 in Silicon Valley, Oscar-winning producer Lawrence Bender and Yahoo! launched www.18seconds.org to encourage people to change ordinary incandescent light bulbs to new compact fluorescent light bulbs. CFLs for short. No offense to Thomas Edison, but the incandescent is a dinosaur. It hasn't changed in over 130 years. The modern sexy CFL uses only one-third of the energy and can last up to 5-10 times as long. You can save energy and save the planet simultaneously.

If every American swapped just one bulb for a CFL, it would collectively save more than $8 billion in energy costs, prevent burning 30 billion pounds of coal, and remove 2 million cars worth of greenhouse gas emissions from our atmosphere.

Even though I was running on less than 4 hours of sleep after the Global Green Oscar Party, the 18seconds light bulb summit kept me awake for the entire afternoon. Representatives from Home Depot and Wal-Mart were there. This is the real deal. So join the compact fluorescent revolution and fight global warming in 18 seconds or less. Look for CFLs that have the ENERGY STAR label. And many utilities like PG&E will even give you a rebate for switching. The future is bright at www.18seconds.org