The Whole Eco-movement is So Misunderstood
Everyone is going green
Nowadays you'll see everyone going green. Electric cars? Energy efficient lightbulbs? Buying local? It's a trend that's going in to all parts of our life. No, even more, it's peer pressure. If you don't "care" about the environment, then you're not cool.
It's just energy efficiency
But here's my problem with it, it's nothing new. It's just being energy efficient.
Not using those lights or that aircond? Turn it off.
Your car is burning your fuel really fast? Make it more efficient.
The food you buy is shipped from really far away and burns fuel? Buy local.
Well actually, as you can see I have no real problem with going green and saving the environment. I'm a very nature-friendly guy. I love trees. I keep a huge collection of preserved trees in my house on shelves (read that as books). I don't eat vegetables because I don't like killing plants (that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!). And my whole family loves animals to death (I think my weirdest pet was a bat).
But I have a problem with people just pretending to join the green movement for the pure cool factor of it.
False sense of accomplishment
When you have no idea what green actually means, you don't do the research. You don't know what you're doing. You only follow the trends.
Trend #1 Earth hour. One hour a year where people turn off their lights. Great idea, but some people instead feel that they've done their part. And that's it. So airconds are still left on. Office PCs aren't shut down at night. Did you know that if you save 1 minute of electricity a day, that's 365 minutes in a year? 6 hours right there. 6 whole Earth hours. much better than 1 don't you think?
Trend #2 Electric cars. The Tesla Roadster is a marvel of engineering. Truly. But it's not an environmentally friendly car. I know it doesn't burn anything. But think, it has to charge it's batteries right? From an electric socket? Which is connected to the country's power grid. Which gets energy from power plants. Which still mostly burns COAL. So no, the Tesla Roadster isn't eco-friendly.
What we should really do
Just don't waste. It's that simple. Don't waste. That goes for leaving the lights and aircond on when you pop out for an hour, leaving the tap on while brushing your teeth, and leaving the engine running while you wait for someone outside the post office. Don't. Turn it off.
I don't particularly care about how the temperature will change by 2 degrees Celsius in 50 year's time. I do care that we're not being energy efficient.
Must be the electronic engineer in me talking. Optimization... Meh.
Exposed on the Internet
When people talk about how technology is bad, they're almost always talking about how there's good-for-nothing information on the net, or how people stop talking face to face because they facebook instead. But I'm more scared by continuous access we provide to our daily doings online. But I'm scared of twitter instead.
Privacy on the net
A growing number of people are now posting everything about themselves in facebook status updates and twitter updates. Including where you are. And if people know where you are, it also means they know where you're not... at home!
Don't waste time leaving the lights on
Whenever my family heads out on any vacation, we always leave some lights on. It makes sure that people don't see an empty home ripe for robbing.
We don't tell anyone either, except a neighbour (who we completely trust) so that they can check in one in a while. Other people stop their subscriptions to any magazines or newspapers so that there isn't a pile of newspapers out front to show that no one is inside to collect them.
We take all these precautions and all it takes is for someone to check twitter and see the words "With my family catching the sunset in the Philippines!" or "Cairo is really hot..." and they know that you're out.
GPS phones make it worse
Did you know you can update twitter and facebook from phones now? And if you choose to, they'll even include your location!
Check out PleaseRobMe.com and see how many people have that option enabled. Here's a quote from their website.
The danger is publicly telling people where you are. This is because it leaves one place you’re definitely not… home. So here we are; on one end we’re leaving lights on when we’re going on a holiday, and on the other we’re telling everybody on the Internet we’re not home.
It gets even worse if you have “friends” who want to colonize your house. That means they have to enter your address, to tell everyone where they are. Your address... on the Internet... Now you know what to do when people reach for their phone as soon as they enter your home. That’s right, slap them across the face.
- PleaseRobMe.com
Yes people, advertise that you're not home.
But it's not just that: Everything on the internet stays there
Make a post about how you hate work. Or what you did on your weekend. Or maybe it's your friend who makes that post and tags you in a compromising photo. Like one that shows you going rock climbing when you told your boss you were sick with the flu.
Whatever is posted on the internet will get up there and stay there. And your employer may very well find it if they just google your name. Do you know that some companies now force you to add your boss to your facebook profile? They want to make sure you're not hurting the image of the company.
And if they do find out and you plan to change jobs? The new company you apply at may very well do a google search on you too. You know, just to make sure you're not a convicted criminal or anything. But instead that embarrassing blogpost comes up about the time you complained about your company and told all your friends not to buy their products. And the new company goes, "I need a team player, not a whiner", and they don't hire you.
Maybe I'm just being paranoid
I could be paranoid. It wouldn't be the first time. I'm usually very paranoid about my privacy. So please don't EVER post anything that resembles my address online.