Incandescents do release less heat than regular bulbs do, but I don't consider this environmentally friendly. I read an article in the New York Times a few months ago describing the problems associated with disposing these bulbs. Apparently they contain Mercury which can release toxins into the water supplies if they're buried at the dump. Being that Mercury stays in the environment for a long time, we might just be setting ourselves up for a mess. And there really isn't a truly environmentally friendly way to throw out these bulbs once they burn out.

The energy saving I believe aren't worth the irreversible damage this causes the environment, not to mention to our own health.

I find it especially ironic that the "green revolution" has become a hazard for the environment itself. The mercury content of one broken lightbulb can ruin a homes environment. If you vacuum up a broken CFL, it will turn the mercury into a gas and spread it all over your house. Not only does mercury stay in the environment for a long time, but it's also one of the most poisonous substances on Earth. One lightbulb contains 5 milligrams of mercury, but that's enough to poison 6,000 gallons of water. 300 million CFL's were sold last year alone and several states and countries have banned incandescents, including California, Canada and the European Union. The US is well on its way towards adopting the same measures. Folks we're talking about a massive environmental problem here.

We are creating a huge health and environmental problem here and, besides a few articles in the printed press we hear nothing about this. The disposal of light bulbs are going to create massive contamination of trash cans, garbage trucks, and disposal sites, which as mentioned before poses a huge risk to our groundwater drinking supplies. Burning trash with CFL's in them will release toxic clouds of mercury into the atmosphere, thus poisoning our air as well. Cleaning up these dumps of excess mercury will likely take billions of dollars

And all of this for what? The environmentalist movement has taken on a singular focus on reducing CO2 emissions while ignoring or even creating other environmental problems in this pursuit. While I believe that CO2 emissions are creating some long term warming of the environment, I don't believe the doom-and-gloom scenarios that some like Al Gore paint, nor do I agree with their solutions, which amount to economic and technological austerity in the goal to POSSIBLY reduce the planet's temperature. Even the best intentions can create the worst of outcomes.