Beware, smug levels in Perth are very high.
So over the last few years I have been becoming increasingly eco-conscious in a "kinda irritated at the big corps and power generators for screwing our planet" kinda way.
I'm a realist eco-freak tho. I recycle when its there, I turn the lights off when I remember but at the same time I _know_ that the majority of the planet raping comes from
power generation
food production
transport
general fossil fuel badness
As such while I am not the type to tell you you should be eating yogurt and aligning your chackras as you recycle. I _am_ the type to get really irritated when I see a heavily smoky car or a coal fired power plant.
The main reason for this is that I am also a geek. As a geek I am at some visceral level irritated by "shit tech" (tm) Fossil fuels while terribly efficient and wonderful for lots of free man hours are in the long run "shit tech". They destroy the environment (which is, I might add, a place I quite like to hang out), are not renewable and are generally fairly low on cool factor. "Let me get this straight... you _burn_ it? Well la-da-dee! 10,000 years and we're still on _fire_"
So anyway. I'm a big believer in engineering solutions. As such I get a boner for eco-houses, sustainable farming, solar and other natural/renewable power sources and electric cars. (specially ones that go _Vroooooom_)
So much to my dismay/orgasmic joy I recently discovered
http://www.ecogeek.org/
a web site that combines two of my favorite things in a cornucopia of awesome.
As a result I've been looking at a lot of neeto things and just recently bought one of these puppies.
http://www.voltaicsystems.com/bag_messenger.shtml
That's right... a solar messenger bag. Yes it's cool. It has an internal battery pack that charges up whenever I am walking anywhere (which is alot, not burning that gasoline). The battery pack has a handy output jack with adapters for _all_ the geek toys I have and more.
No more charging my cell, PDA, IPOD, GPS receiver (and other assorted icons of electromagnetic pollution) from the nasty grid. I am _off-net_ baby.
Sure as the website points out I've probably killed more trees in the making of the bag than I will ever recoup from the power savings I make by not using the grid (tho I suspect they severely underestimate my power use) but I get to be a walking ad for the wonders of solar power and more importantly, it's _neat tech_!
So I may not have saved the planet but I do get a warm glow every time I walk down the street with the red LED on the top of my bag pulsing evilly.
Screw you bad tech, screw you.
P.S Some other examples of strong sauce for those who might be interested.
Solar Power tower, combine solar and wind for more awesome : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EW1na2HAy48
Enviromission : http://www.enviromission.com.au/project/project.htm
Electric cars kick ass : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqqtJpfZElQ
and are sexy too : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1C44JQU7Pc
Need more of this shit.
I'm a realist eco-freak tho. I recycle when its there, I turn the lights off when I remember but at the same time I _know_ that the majority of the planet raping comes from
power generation
food production
transport
general fossil fuel badness
As such while I am not the type to tell you you should be eating yogurt and aligning your chackras as you recycle. I _am_ the type to get really irritated when I see a heavily smoky car or a coal fired power plant.
The main reason for this is that I am also a geek. As a geek I am at some visceral level irritated by "shit tech" (tm) Fossil fuels while terribly efficient and wonderful for lots of free man hours are in the long run "shit tech". They destroy the environment (which is, I might add, a place I quite like to hang out), are not renewable and are generally fairly low on cool factor. "Let me get this straight... you _burn_ it? Well la-da-dee! 10,000 years and we're still on _fire_"
So anyway. I'm a big believer in engineering solutions. As such I get a boner for eco-houses, sustainable farming, solar and other natural/renewable power sources and electric cars. (specially ones that go _Vroooooom_)
So much to my dismay/orgasmic joy I recently discovered
http://www.ecogeek.org/
a web site that combines two of my favorite things in a cornucopia of awesome.
As a result I've been looking at a lot of neeto things and just recently bought one of these puppies.
http://www.voltaicsystems.com/bag_messenger.shtml
That's right... a solar messenger bag. Yes it's cool. It has an internal battery pack that charges up whenever I am walking anywhere (which is alot, not burning that gasoline). The battery pack has a handy output jack with adapters for _all_ the geek toys I have and more.
No more charging my cell, PDA, IPOD, GPS receiver (and other assorted icons of electromagnetic pollution) from the nasty grid. I am _off-net_ baby.
Sure as the website points out I've probably killed more trees in the making of the bag than I will ever recoup from the power savings I make by not using the grid (tho I suspect they severely underestimate my power use) but I get to be a walking ad for the wonders of solar power and more importantly, it's _neat tech_!
So I may not have saved the planet but I do get a warm glow every time I walk down the street with the red LED on the top of my bag pulsing evilly.
Screw you bad tech, screw you.
P.S Some other examples of strong sauce for those who might be interested.
Solar Power tower, combine solar and wind for more awesome : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EW1na2HAy48
Enviromission : http://www.enviromission.com.au/project/project.htm
Electric cars kick ass : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqqtJpfZElQ
and are sexy too : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1C44JQU7Pc
Need more of this shit.