Who knew one little light bulb could shed light on energy savings. I learned this as I walked out of the dining hall on campus of all places, and now am going to challenge you think about it, too.

So back to the dining hall. I walked out, and Celeste was sitting at a table passing out light bulbs. Spreading the green news about the Take Charge Challenge in Kansas, Celeste, a student I met during my environmental reporting days for the University Daily Kansan, handed me a light bulb and told me to take charge of my energy consumption so we could beat Manhattan, Kan. (Sadly, I have to report that we are lagging behind.)

This taking charge of my energy consumption meant replacing my incandescent bulbs with a more efficient compact fluorescent (CFLs) bulb. And if you are wondering what those look like, those are the ones with the circular rings, instead of a big bulb. So I walked back to my hall, unscrewed the old bulb out of my purple desk lamp, put my new, energy-efficient bulb in and started saving energy. In just one day, I started saving $9.21. That’s almost enough to eat at Chipotle and Culver’s this week.

I wasn’t just saving money; I was saving the environment with that one little switch. I prevented 123 pounds of CO2 from entering the atmosphere. That is a small amount considering in 2007 the United States had CO2 emissions of 19.3 metric tons per capita. That was the 10th highest in the world, according to the World Bank. But if more people reduce their CO2 emissions, it adds up. As part of the Take Charge Challenge in Kansas, 16 communities saved 10 billion BTUs (British thermal units) of energy, which equals 74,300 gallons of gasoline not being burned. And that amount of saving was only from Jan. 1 to March 15. The monetary saving from this reached $232,000 in just those 75 days. So if you do the math, in 2011, Kansas will save more than $1.1 million from conserving energy.

Changing light bulbs isn’t the only way you can be involved. While 58,000 light bulbs were changed, making it the most common way Kansans participated in the Take Charge Challenge, 91 home energy audits were completed, 14 energy efficiency projected were done and 117 programmable thermostats were installed. This friendly competition was made possible by a $1.2 million grant from the Kansas Corporation Commission’s Kansas Energy Office and managed by the Climate and Energy Project.

So now I challenge you, take charge of your energy consumption and visit TakeChargeKS.org to find your region and ways you can save money and energy at home.