A piece of wire in a vacuum resisting electricity is very efficient. All the energy that is consumed by such a device will be turned into a) light and b) heat. There is no where else for the energy to go. Assuming that you require light indoors when it is dark, the chances are that it will be wintertime and you will also have the heating on. Therefore having a light on will reduce the energy used in your heating system. Therefore there is absolutely nothing to be gained from having low energy lighting in the winter.
In the summer it is a different matter. You don’t want heat – you just want light. Surely the truly environmental solution would be to get up when it gets light and to go to bed before it gets dark. You wouldn’t really need any lights then!
Outside, of course, it is different again. Any heat generated by the lights is simply heating the sky. Should we just not do what Sir Patrick Moore desires and turn off lighting outside?
Paying around with low energy lighting is just wasting effort which would be best spent saving the earth in a more beneficial way!

Wait, how is that a device that is meant to produce light efficient if it’s producing heat? If we’re using light bulbs to heat a home, how efficient is that compared regular heating? In the winter time, you still have to heat your home and I doubt shaving off a degree or two would be much use. Besides, that heat isn’t going to radiate throughout the house. Feeling cold? Why not put on a sweater instead of turning up the heat or using light bulbs to heat your house.

Do the topic of CFLs, I hope there’s technology out there to help those people who can’t stand them because incandescent lights aren’t that much better in the end. You use them more and here in Canada, we simply throw ours out in the garbage when they’ve gone through a few months of use. We don’t even bother recycling the glass and metal. They’re still considered disposable like razors. It’s awesome the amount of garabe we dump into th arctic.

In the summer it is a different matter. You don’t want heat – you just want light. Surely the truly environmental solution would be to get up when it gets light and to go to bed before it gets dark. You wouldn’t really need any lights then!

Outside, of course, it is different again. Any heat generated by the lights is simply heating the sky. Should we just not do what Sir Patrick Moore desires and turn off lighting outside?

Paying around with low energy lighting is just wasting effort which would be best spent saving the earth in a more beneficial way!

I get headaches from florescent lights that are closer than 8 feet away which is hard to achieve in a home. I do get headaches from incandescent lights too but they only need to be at least 2 feet away to not give me a headache which is easily achieved.