On topic: Although all the discussion about the advantages of CRTs to certain graphics professionals are interesting, it's important to realize that the basic tradeoffs are pretty simple:
1) LCDs are vastly easier on your eyes according to almost anybody you ask (I know people with weak eyes that refuse to use anything else).
2) LCDs emit less radiation, which is probably healthy for you (and anybody behind the monitor if it doesn't face a wall).
3) LCDs use less power, but that's not a big enough savings to make them worth while in almost any case.
4) CRTs are much cheaper, if you really can't afford an LCD.
5) A good CRT will produce somewhat better color than most LCDs. This isn't nearly enough of a difference to matter to most people.
6) CRTs are better for huge refresh rates and extremely high resolutions, although in the latter case they generally start to look fuzzy at some point. This mostly matters to dedicated gamers, since few people use those high resolutions anyway.
Personally, I think for the vast majority of average users, LCDs are the easy choice. For those on a tight budget or with unusual color needs, CRTs are a better option.
I'd definitly look at used CRTs at this point, since the proliferation of LCDs is pushing a lot of people to sell perfectly good monitors (also negates the environmental impact, since the monitor already exists).
Off topic:
jxyama said:
solar - probably as 'clean' as it gets at the current level, but the chemicals/materials involved in the production of the panels are quite nasty stuff.
geothermal and wind - there are considerable effects on the surrounding ecosystem.
No, actually, properly done wind is usually "cleaner" than solar. The payback period for the manufacturing of the wind turbine is far lower than for a PV panel, the manufacturing process is cleaner, and they take FAR less land area to produce the same amount of power (you would have to pave a 200mX200m--10 acre--area with PV to equal the output of a single large turbine that can sit in a cow pasture somewhere). Large (~MW scale) wind turbines don't chew up birds, either, because they move so slowly.
Every method of producing energy, however "green", has some negative side effects, but wind currently has less than any other, and in fact is also the cheapest, period, with the exception of mine-mouth coal (that is, a coal-fired plant near a coal mine) and some kinds of natural gas plants (providing gas prices don't rise).
