Plaidophile

Okay, I know I'm like two years behind the times, but I finally watched An Inconvenient Truth. Al Gore clearly has an agenda, but that agenda is saving the world so I can't really fault him for that.

Now I can't help but notice all the little things I could do to save a lot of energy. Like turning my computers off when I'm not using them, not always having my PS2 in standby mode since I almost never actually turn it on, completely powering off my stereo instead of just putting it into standby mode, and so on.

It is aggravating that the Apple TV always takes 17W of power whether it's being used or not (even in standby mode!). I so rarely use it. There's no hard power button on it, either. So, I'll just have to unplug it most of the time.

I did turn off WiiConnect24 a couple months ago (reducing its standby power consumption from 10W to 3W), and to be fair the PS3's standby power consumption isn't that much, although every little bit helps. And of course, selfish geek that I am, I didn't have my G5 set to even go into standby mode when it wasn't in use (with the theory that I might want to be able to ssh home at any time for some reason, although now I keep my need-to-access-anywhere documents on a WebDAV share on beesbuzz.biz so I really don't have much reason for that anymore), so I've changed it to go to sleep after 3 hours of non-use. Same with my PowerBook G4. I'll try to remember to actually shut them off when I'm not using them. At the very least they'll actually be off while I'm in Japan, anyway.

According to climatecrisis.net's carbon output calculator, I'm responsible for about 4.3 tons of carbon per year, which is somewhat lower than the average but if I can reduce my power bill to $25/mo then it'll be closer to 3.25. Okay, that doesn't make much of a difference, but I think that I will try to keep my monthly power bill under $25. (Of course a lot of this is very hand-wavey, since it doesn't seem to factor for things like fuel used in the food I eat, but I also way overestimated my driving impact as well).

I want to invest in renewable energy. Wind, reclaimed methane, and solar power, sustainable ethanol production (not corn!), and electric cars whose operational environmental impact actually offsets their manufacturing impact. The New Alternatives Fund looks promising, but for some reason, Charles Schwab can't invest in it. The Guinness Atkinson Funds have decent long-term performance (although this year they've been in the crapper, like everything else) so that might be worth looking into.

What else can I do to help? Recycling still hasn't been shown to be a net benefit, I already don't have a car and do walk or take mass transit for most of my transportation, and I mostly buy organic foods and at least try to keep my consumption to a minimum (although I entirely fail at this). I could buy carbon offsets but those don't seem like a long-term solution. So what else is there?