Hi, people! I bet everyone has heard of the climate change international conference buzz in Copenhagen. We can easily find the news related to the summit anywhere in the web, on TV, newspapers. No doubt that going green is becoming increasingly massive a trend.
Green lifestyle shouldn’t be a sheer short-term trend though. In fact that is just what we need to save ourselves from being destroyed by our own foolishness. Unless we could migrate to another pristine livable planet or celestial bodies (Though Mars and the moon save a certain amount of water but living on earth is far much better), we nowadays are demanded to alter our environmentally unfriendly lifestyles and habits for the sake of mother Earth and the human civilization’s future. Regardless of the dispute whether global warming is a pure myth that Al Gore has always been blurting, I witness with my own eyes many proofs indicating how far mankinds have interfered the natural processes taking place on earth, which eventually proves to be disastrous.
There is a thin line between being a selfish person and a fool. In this case, I’d say that being selfish isn’t always bad. When it comes to environment, we are to be selfish. Why? Because everything on earth is connected to each other, something bad that other people do always gives bad impacts on the surrounding, including YOU. By thinking of your own interest and rights to live healthily, your concern of green living is increasing. For example, you should be mad at seeing people throwing away garbage into rivers because the garbage (esp. plastic and chemical substances) would flow into our rivers and poison all living creatures in rivers and seas (you should see how many seagulls choke themselves by swallowing plastic bags), including fish and sea food that we chew! Sea food is nutritious but when it contains heavy metals I don’t think it’ll do good for your health. Only fools think that they are OK with the polluting actions and assume they won’t be affected in any ways by the effects.
Bloggers can go green too!
We (bloggers) are part of the earth inhabitants. We therefore are required to get actively involved in this colossal earth-rescuing enterprise. Anyone can contribute to saving the future of earth and the entire humanity, including us, bloggers!
These are a number of steps we as bloggers can take to contribute to this noble enterprise:
- Buy a green laptop/ PC
- Minimize power consumption
- Pick green accessories
- Dispose of unused stuff properly
How can I buy a green laptop/ PC?
If we still think that becoming green is costly, it’s now the right time to change our mind. Most of green electronic products are expensive by their pricetag but in the long run they can save you lots of money. Green products normally use up less power (electricity) while non-green products more.
Laptop are indispensable gadget for bloggers. Some bloggers use desktops but I believe there’re more bloggers using portable notebooks/ netbooks as their intimate blogging companion. And we ought to know that last year alone 148 million notebooks were sold worldwide and the number is growing! You can imagine how big the contribution will be if those 148 million notebooks’ users use green products. That’s why even every little action counts, people!
Painting your laptop green doesn’t make it ‘green’!
Basically a green laptop or PC should use less power than others. This bases on the assumption that the less power it consumes, the less fossil fuels is needed (which means less greenhouse gas is generated).
There are the points extracted from laptopmag.com containing some technical guidelines to determine how green a notebook is:
- buy notebook with less plastic and styrofoam packaging: Styrofoam and plastic are
considered bad for environment.
- battery charge time and power : the less energy amount (wattage) is used, the better our laptop is.
- battery life : the longer our battery can survive, the more it saves electricity and eventually, saves environment.
- surf test : Using Wi-Fi connection, a green notebook must spend less amount of energy to explore the Internet.
- PC mark vantage/ PC mark 05 : This test simulates various computing activities to find out how much power is used.
- idle :The average amount of wattage used when the computer is idle, with the screen at maximum brightness.
- electronic product environmental assessment tool (EPEAT) rating: Check out the detailed EPEAT criteria.
- Greenpeace rating: If your laptop manufacturer is listed on Greenpeace’s Green Electronics List, that means you make a great choice.
What can I do to minimize power consumption?
Regardless of the fact that you might have ever read or heard of the tips below, I guess I still need to show them:
- reduce display brightness (bright display uses more energy and strains your eyes more than dim display)
- apply screensaver when the computer is left unused for a while (making your laptop screen lasts longer too, preventing dead pixels)
- shorten the length of time before the system turns off display (when the display gets blank, it uses less power)
- turn off or remove any external devices you no longer need
- always turn off your bluetooth and wireless LAN (Wi-Fi) device after using
- if left unused, set the laptop system to hibernate/ sleep/ shut down after a certain period of time (the shorter the time period is, the better)
How can I pick green accessories/peripherals?
Make sure you find the word ‘renewable’ on your package. Some products have package made with 100% renewable plastic and paper. It means they can be recycled and thus harms the environment less than others do.
Give extra attention to these symbols and what they mean
On some accessories, you’re likely to spot the symbols above. They mean the products you’re using are recyclable.
How should I dispose of unused stuff properly?
When your mouse or laptop battery start to fail to function normally, you may think it’s time to get the new one. But consider the warning sign. Never throw away your battery to a landfill waste treatment. Some types of batteries contain heavy metals (like mercury, cadmium, nickel, etc) that can seep through ground and pollute underground water supply.
One more thing bloggers can do is publishing posts related to climate change issue in order to spread and boost more public awareness of how badly our earth is needing our help at the moment. Although today isn’t April 22 (Earth Day), I strongly believe that every day must be our Earth Day.
So are you ready to go green from today on?
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