Graig MantleAmidst the frenzy surrounding global warming, Bulbs Across America, a local organization made up of community members and students, is approaching the problem one bulb at a time.
Bulbs Across America offers free demonstrations to organizations on the advantages of energy-efficient compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs). CFLs help reduce global warming by decreasing the demand at power plants, thus lowering emissions, Bulbs Across America creator Teddy Llovet said.
“If every home in America replaced just one light bulb with an energy saving bulb, we could save enough energy to close down two power plants or light more than 2.5 million homes for one year,” Llovet said, repeating one of the program’s core messages.
Demonstrations involve volunteers called light leaders showing that CFLs are as bright as standard bulbs but cool to the touch. Some free CFLs that were donated by Miner’s Ace Hardware are also handed out.
Business seniors Lisa Donaldson and Julian Revilleza became light leaders after they heard about it through Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE), an organization that allows students to design educational outreach programs. They found Bulbs Across America had the same goals as their joint senior project, which focuses on educating businesses and the public on global warming.
“(CFLs are) the future; there is no way our economy is going to run on inefficiency,” Donaldson said. Wasteful bulbs are the simplest way of understanding the problem of global warming, she added.
Revilleza was drawn to CFLs as a way of helping the environment because they are a simple approach that he could do as an individual, he said.
Donaldson and Revilleza have given presentations at C.L. Smith Elementary school and New Frontiers Natural Market. In April, they gave out information and sold about 100 CFLs at the SIFE Open House booth, Revilleza said.
Llovet came up with the idea for Bulbs Across America in 2006 when she first saw “An Inconvenient Truth,” a documentary on global warming, she said. Llovet started out by giving demonstrations at senior citizen mobile homes in Los Osos earlier this year. Later, she was asked to do a demonstration at the Morro Bay Library.
Word of the presentations started to spread, and Llovet was able to give her presentation at the Los Osos Community District meeting, which is televised locally. Since she started, she has talked to over 200 people. As she got more opportunities, she started looking for other light leaders to give these demonstrations.
“It just got more attention; it is more than I can do myself,” Llovet said.
Llovet offers light leaders a free one-hour training course and the organization currently has 25 active members.
Revilleza hopes that Bulbs Across America continues to have a presence on campus after he and Donaldson graduate in June.
“Everybody should step up and solve this epidemic,” Revilleza said.
CFLs are available at most grocery and hardware stores. Other advantages are that they don’t “buzz” like other fluorescent bulbs and they last 10 times longer than conventional bulbs, Llovet said.
For information on becoming a light leader or scheduling a demonstration, contact Llovet at bulbatatime@yahoo.com.