The 2008 edition of Walk Cheerfully, Step Lightly is now available from Anne Brewer (anne@dorking .quaker.eu.org) at £1 per copy.  This popular booklet produced by the Quaker Group on Sustainability has a calculator to help you estimate your carbon footprint from travel, household energy use, food, waste and other activities and loads of informative tips to help you reduce your footprint.  Here for example is the entry regarding light bulbs:

 Low energy light bulbs (CFLs) pay for themselves in energy savings see www.nef.org.uk/energysaving/lowenergylighting.htm. Suitable ones for all uses, including dimmable bulbs, are now available and warm-up times for recommended brands are now very short. Ethical Consumer 107 July 2007 best buy was Omicron (www.omicronuk.com). Also recommended were Kosnic, Biobulb (a full-spectrum daylight bulb) and Megaman. Philips scored best of the readily available brands. Sources – www.bltdirect.co.uk (Omicron, Philips); www.low-energy-lighting.com (Omicron, Megaman, Philips); CAT (Biobulb); www.lightbulbs-direct.com (Biobulb, Megaman, Philips); www.efficientlight.co.uk (Kosnic, Megaman, Philips); www.doctorenergy.co.uk (Biobulb, Kosnic). CFLs contain mercury and should not be land-filled – for recycling see page 21. LEDs may soon replace CFLs – a 3.4 watt LED is equivalent to a 40 watt incandescent lightbulb or a 10 watt CFL – but don’t yet produce light quality to match that from halogen or new generation CFLs. Current advice is they’re OK in side lights, but not for lighting a whole room. They’re more expensive than CFLs, but last even longer. Omicron LEDs were best buy in EC107. Advances in technology should see them becoming brighter and cheaper. They should solve the problem of negative health impact of CFLs on a small number of people.