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Simran Sethi and Sarah Smarsh are writing a series on the impacts of everyday things. They will be posting previews on Green Options before launching the posts on Huffington Post. Want to know how to green your internet porn (or emailing or iTunes) habit? Check out these tips and a post-mortem of where your computers go to die.
Recently, the world computer population surpassed 1 billion. It’s a legion of artificial intelligence that will never die, at least not while humans are around to see it.
The computer species appears to have a high mortality rate (whether due to the rapid progress of technology or an industry conspiracy to ensure that products must be replaced regularly). They “crash” and “die” in droves, their human counterparts literally kicking them to the curb. But there is no heaven, no place in the clouds, for the cold, hard shell once warmed by electrical currents. Once it has left your desk, your computer doesn’t disappear. In a sense, it lives on.
By John Ivanko •
July 16, 2008
We need to change the ECOnomic “story” that Wall Street, Washington DC politicos, and our capitalist culture of consumption are weaving.
We need to find a more sensible appoach to economics — call it ECOmonics — that doesn’t require infinite growth on a finite planet. For Earth’s sake and our sake, we need to get to 350 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Quickly. Many of us, either as conserving customers or ecopreneurs, are already well on our way to helping make it so.
We’re reaching a point where the “More, Bigger, Faster” mode of economic activity — often at complete odds with social justice and ecological realities of a finite Earth system — must change. It is changing, by ecopreneurs who are determined NOT to destroy the planet or exploit people in the process. Like us, many green business owners are small sizing our operations to provide optimal control over our impacts. An egg is still an egg, one of the most complete forms of protein you can fry up in a pan, regardless of its size.
Our present growth-obsessed, global, capitalistic economic “story” seems broken when 5-percent of the world’s people uses 25-percent of its resources, produces 40-percent of the waste and, interestingly on the social side, houses 25-percent of the prison population.
By Paul Smith •
June 12, 2008
Recycling as an everyday practice has become more and more common these days. But what about all those gadgets you accumulate? What happens to them? There are many options out there, but for most, they involve more cost, effort, and time then our busy schedules or motivation will allow. Sure, there are some newer options such as Second Rotation, the company I profiled in January that quotes you a value for your product based on the condition you claim it’s in, then they inspect it, and either give you that amount, or a different agreed upon one. But even there, with the free shipping and the possibility of getting cash rather then spending it to recycle, it’s based on current market value, a wildly fluctuating amount, as the new half price twice the speed iPhone exemplifies.
What if you could guarantee exactly how much you’d get, based on how long you’ve owned it, at the time of purchase? This is now a reality, via the company Tech Forward. You can buy a product at any store you like, then purchase their Guaranteed Buyback service, which covers a wide range of electronics, from MP3 players to desktop computers.
A couple weeks ago Apple filed a patent to explore the use of solar power in their next generation of mobile devices. With battery life being a long running issue for Apple’s laptops and mobile phones, solar power could help extend use time without having to plug in.
The patent filing discusses placing the solar technology behind the LCD screen of the devices so that the panels would absorb ambient light without adding additional width [...]
By Joshua S Hill •
October 22, 2007
The world of journalistic reporting is a funny one, with revisions and corrections sometimes making a lot of work moot. According to Apple, this may be the case for a piece I wrote on the iPhone taking a beating from Greenpeace. So, in an effort to keep our reporting fair and balanced (oh gosh, now I sound like I work for Fox) here’s the other side to that article.
The article in question
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By Joshua S Hill •
October 17, 2007
The Apple iPhone — the geeks very own messiah — has been the hot topic of conversation the world over. Geeks and lay men and women have all been gathering around the proverbial water-cooler with one thing on their mind (two if you include Britney Spears). But the water-cooler at Greenpeace has not been yielding the same happy vibes as Apple would have hoped.
September of 2006 saw Greenpeace launch the
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