As you can see from the first comment to the "carbon fast" post, many people are confused about the meaning of Lent - or they're simply glomming onto the "Lent" word to push their own agendas. We are to turn from our personal sin and take seriously one of the first questions in the Baltimore Catechism. "Why did God make me?" "God made me to know, love and serve Him in this world, and be happy forever with Him in the next." That is how our lives are to be ordered. Sadly, such is not the case.
Our primary duty is to see to our eternal salvation, and the salvation of those around us. That means we preach and practice, among other things, respect for God's laws regarding marriage as a life-long union of one man and one woman. We preach and practice that sexual relations only occur between two married people as discussed in the previous sentence, and that every such act be open to new life. Contraception, in all its disgusting and perverted forms, is shunned as the poison that it is. Under no circumstances is the life of an innocent person to be taken; that means no abortion and no euthanasia whatsover. We follow the Church's teachings regarding the sacraments, and their worthy and frequent reception.
Anyone who deviates from these, either in thought, word or deed must repent of these via the Sacrament of Reconciliation. We offer prayers and sacrifices in reparation for our own sins and those of others. THAT is Lent: NOT unscrewing light bulbs or starting compost piles in the back yard or letting our dishwashers "breathe". To my IPL reader: the ideas may in and of themselves be economically useful, but when they are 1) put on the same level as the Stations of the Cross, the Mass, etc and 2) based on junk science, they become CRAP in that context. Follow them if you will, but let no one be deluded into thinking that they will suffice as Lenten practices.
Let me now adress that last sentence on the calendar, about serving God by "pursuing a more sustainable way of life." The emphasis is completely wrong. We serve God by obeying His Commands and by obeying His Church, not by jumping onto politically-correct bandwagons. See below for Real Catholic TV's take.
By the way - in regards to the question in the title, light bulbs can be unscrewed in more ways than one!
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