There have been a few eye opening articles on CFL (compact fluorescent lightbulbs) recently. As a result Dayna and I have been swapping them in around our place for the last while. Here's some quickie quotes from the articles, and links to the articles themselves.

[..] If every one of 110 million American households bought just one ice-cream-cone bulb, took it home, and screwed it in the place of an ordinary 60-watt bulb, the energy saved would be enough to power a city of 1.5 million people. One bulb swapped out, enough electricity saved to power all the homes in Delaware and Rhode Island. In terms of oil not burned, or greenhouse gases not exhausted into the atmosphere, one bulb is equivalent to taking 1.3 million cars off the roads.

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/108/open_lightbulbs.html

[Australia is] introducing new energy efficiency standards and these old
lights simply won't comply, they will be phased out and basically over
a period of time (3 years) they will no longer be for sale," Mr Turnbull said.

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21258888-421,00.html

On the negative side of things, the packaging for the bulbs don't mention anything about what generation of bulbs they are, so we've occasionally brought home bulbs that take a second to turn on, which sucks.