Sierra Club's Bright Idea

  No longer content just to educate voters -- and presidential candidates -- the New Hampshire Sierra Club is making a difference one light bulb at a time. On the campaign trail, volunteers are handing out the usual fliers on environmental issues, such as global warming. They are also handing out compact fluorescent light bulbs. Sierra gave away a number of the pig-tailed bulbs last night at John McCain's event in Manchester. If every American home replaced just one bulb with the more energy efficient variety it would save enough energy to light more than 3 million homes a year and save more than $600 million in energy costs a year, according to EnergyStar.gov. And it would prevent greenhouse gases equivalent to the emissions of more than 800,000 cars. No word from Uncle Sam on how much greenhouse gases could be prevented by McCain retiring his big bus, the Straight Talk Express.