PenFall

Crossposted from my EchoDitto Blog

As much as I love computers, and the internet, and our ever-impressive technologies (as you may have deduced from my last post), I’m actually more of a nature-loving hippie than you’d think (and no, the two are definitely not incompatible). A few years ago I spent two consecutive summers at Tanager Lodge Summer Camp – a wilderness camp for children ages 5-15 – where your living quarters are tents, your shower is the lake, and your entertainment revolves around the natural surroundings. We canoed, hiked, went fishing, cooked outdoors, chased after chipmunks, and so on. Now of course it wasn’t all fun and games. As a counselor I was in charge of certain activities as well as taking charge of my tent group — 4 twelve-year-old girls. But the essence of the camp, the reason we were all there, was to learn more about nature, to learn to live with it, and to gain an even greater respect for our environment.

So, why am I writing about this? Well, if you have read Terrance’s most recent post you would know that this Saturday was Shutdown day, essentially 24hrs of refraining from using the computer. Putting aside the purpose of this particular campaign, when our own Michael Silberman first sent an email alerting the team to this day, I thought, “Well, that’s a great idea! But, I know I have work to do this weekend, and I’d rather not work on Sunday.” Sorry folks, it’s just a fact. But then I thought, “Why do I need someone else to challenge me? I can do this any day I choose!” So I made a deal with myself – I’d forget their challenge and make my own. I’d complete all of my work on Saturday, and turn my computer off all day Sunday. Easy, right?

Ah, but not so! It’s amazing to me that two or three years ago I did not even think twice about cutting myself off from civilization for three months. In fact, I relished in the opportunity to do so. Even being the cigarette smoker I am, I was able to quit cold turkey the moment I stepped foot off of the boat and onto that little peninsula because in that setting it just did not seem right. But for one day, this weekend, I couldn’t even shut my computer down for a day. I did not make it. I found myself frantic at 2pm. My phone had buzzed, meaning I had received an email. I know this particular challenge was to not use the computer, but I definitely felt I would be cheating if I checked my email via phone. So an hour went by, and another hour. Finally at 4pm I couldn’t take it. I checked my phone; I turned on my computer and checked my email, returned emails, got notes ready for work the next day. I looked at my blog (shameless plug right here) and blog stats, clicked around on my blogroll. I had failed the challenge. But I didn’t consider it a big deal.

What struck me the most about EchoDitto before joining the team was the number of folks who love to hike, ski, play Frisbee, and just generally enjoy the outdoors. All of us spend (easily) over 10-12 hours a day in front of a computer, so it seems a bit contradictory that most (if not all) of us are avid nature-geeks as well. But it’s true! I know it to be a fact, and if you don’t believe me just take one look at some of our clients (past and present) – Greenpeace UK, Defenders of Wildlife, and Seventh Generation and their blog The Inspired Protagonist (just to name a few). When asked if they participated in Shutdown day, most here at EchoDitto just said “no.” Three members of the ED team participated, “but not on purpose.” One of us said, “heck no, are you kidding?” (not exactly in those words but you get the idea). One of us had our computer on but only to use it as a DVD player, and one attested, “I’ve done days without computer access before – they’re terrible!”

I’m not attempting to “out” EchoDitto here, not at all. Upon looking at the shutdown day site today, the top thing people did on Shutdown day was: “I used my computer.” 19 more people “used their computers”, as well as 12 who tagged “use la computadora.” 28 people tagged “this is stupid,” another 35 said they did “nothing.” Now the campaign itself wasn’t entirely inspiring & perhaps there wasn’t enough information out there for why turning off your computer for a day would be a good thing (and there wasn’t, really), but I still had hope that most people would not question it, that most would love any opportunity to get away from the computer and do something else.

But most used their computers, and those who didn’t did mostly nothing, or partied, or “browsed engaget” or “watched TV.” I had made the decision to disregard the campaign and just challenge myself. And I thought that since I had made a conscious effort to participate that it would come easily. I doubted I would even really want to use my computer, but I did want to, I did use it, all the while providing endless excuses to myself for doing so. And when I wasn’t breaking the rules by using my computer, I was mostly doing nothing – cleaning my apartment, reading a book, or just sitting on my futon.

So what’s the point of all this? Well, I don’t know about everyone else, but I’m ready to admit I have a problem. When you find that turning off your computer for 6 hours is difficult, it’s time to go hug a tree – go rock climbing, or just go sit in the grass outside and stare up at the sky for a while. Sure, blogs will be updated, news will happen, you might even miss something (god forbid!), but no one will ever be able to describe the feeling you get while laying in the grass on a beautiful Sunday afternoon, feeling the wind tickle your feet as clouds drift by above. No one will ever be able to accurately portray, on a blog, the smell of mountain air.

Crossposted from my EchoDitto blog.

Beginning in April, some food packaging in the UK will have a carbon-footprint label, informing consumers as to “how many grammes of carbon dioxide were emitted during production, from sourcing raw materials, to manufacturing and transporting the products to stores.” This program, run by The Carbon Trust, forces companies who use the label to sign a “reduce it or lose it” agreement — reduce your carbon footprint or lose the label.

My first question is: Will this work? Will seeing the carbon-footprint of a label effect a consumer’s decision to buy or not buy a product? Would it effect my decision? This program could effect UK businesses in a few ways (if the program actually takes off), the first being corporate competition. Rather than the success of a company being measured in its market share or profit, these companies will be held to a higher standard. Not only must they be profitable, they must be environmentally aware and their products must be environmentally safe. But in my opinion, the potential for this to go bad, for big companies to cheat their way around the system, is big. Maybe I’m just a cynic, but I don’t foresee many companies subjecting themselves to additional tests and cost simply to “do their part” for the environment.

From BBC:

“A standard pack of Walkers Cheese & Onion Crisps, the brands bestseller and first to carry the logo, weighs in at 75 grams of CO2, whereas a bottle of Boots Organics shampoo clocks up 148 grams. However, an Innocent smoothie is not so innocent in its running up of a miniature carbon footprint of 294 grams.”

By changing the way it makes its potato chips, Walkers could save up to 9,200 tons of carbon dioxide emissions and £1.2 per year, but what are the chances of the average person making a difference in their own carbon footprint? For instance, according to www.carboncalculator.com, the average household’s carbon dioxide emissions from Energy use (in the UK) is approximately 400kg per year. So why does it matter that making a bottle of shampoo emits 148 grams of carbon dioxide? And if the bottle of shampoo is already made, what does it matter if I buy it or not? Answering these questions is much like answering this one in the United States: “why should I vote when my one vote will clearly not make a difference?” When the average household emits 400kg of carbon dioxide per year, reducing it, and reducing my own carbon footprint seems an arduous task. This one program, with these small labels, might actually have a greater effect than we could ever anticipate. It is a more realistic goal to reduce my carbon footprint by 100 grams, one bottle of shampoo at a time, than it is to reduce my entire households (or apartments) carbon dioxide emissions for a whole year.

The Carbon Trust is not the first to implement this program of labeling products. Timberland has already begun providing information regarding the energy used and labor hours spent making a product. I think this is actually pretty cool, especially that they display the number of labor hours that went into a product. In 2008 Wal-Mart Stores will have suppliers fill out scorecards on the environmental sustainability of their products and buyers will have the chance to view those scorecards.

And this is when I wonder – couldn’t they be doing more?? (At Wal-Mart, well yes, they could always do more. I’ll refrain from predicting the (non)effect of their “scorecards.”) Specifically, could The Carbon Trust be utilizing our ever-advancing technologies to make an even bigger impact? Research Shows that “66 percent of customers say they want to know the carbon footprint of the products they buy.” This may be the case in the UK, but what about the US? Simply adding a label to foods will not work here in the United States – just take a look at the statistics for obesity, yet there is a nutritional label on every item of packaged food. It isn’t that people aren’t aware of the ingredients, it’s that most just do not care. So why not marry the implementation of a label with some kind of existing and cool technology? I’ll steal an idea from my colleague — The Carbon Trust could, for example, create a tool that allows customers to scan barcode’s with their camera phones of products that are not labeled. There are programs out there to log our calorie intake per week or month – why not create a carbon footprint program to log total carbon dioxide emissions from food or other products? This would not only allow someone to look up the carbon footprint of a product, but also easily log and calculate their carbon footprint for food each month.

Don’t get me wrong, I commend The Carbon Trust (and the companies who have signed on) for their dedication to our environment and for their hard work in creating increased awareness of our impact on our environment. But I work at a place where the use of emerging technologies is what we do, it is the air we breathe, and I just don’t see The Carbon Trust taking advantage of those same tools we use here every day.