LEDs may not necessarily lead to reduced consumption but further breakthroughs and developments of it's kind will as there is a very obvious limit to how many hours per day we can leave a light on. The only way we could keep up the same amount of energy consumption with increasingly efficient lighting is by compulsively buying and using lamps.... Which is actually sort of funny to picture.

I think the more important thing LEDs do is offer people a cheap and easy way to be greener. There are lots of people out there like me who would love to grow their own food, install solar panels, and create a water system that recycles water from their sinks and laundry machine but who are poor and living in an apartment where this is not even remotely feasible. It helps us do our part and it can help keep the spirit up. After all at least us poor people are doing something. It's also like metal water bottles or Brita filters; they're easy changes towards a greener life that you can usually sell friends and family members on. Not only is this obviously good because they're now living slightly greener but it encourages them to think in more eco-friendly terms - I've seen it happen and it's a wonderful thing when it does.

All in all the LED isn't an answer, just a tool which can be used towards positive ends.

PS, before anyone asks why I have internet if I'm so poor, I need it for work. I'm a substitute and I sign up for jobs online.

__________________
“Science is always discovering odd scraps of magical wisdom and making a tremendous fuss about its cleverness.” - Aleister Crowley

"The whites called our cradles 'papoose carrier.' Very primitive, they said. But now you see white mothers all over using a kind of 'primitive papoose carrier.' The whites are learning." - Ginger Hillis, Navajo mother quoted in Crying for a Dream