When is Green Technology Most Useful?


It’s a term that’s being bandied about regularly these days, and if you want to be perceived asdoing your bit for the environment, it goes without saying that you must be interested in allthings green as well. Green technology is all the rage today – if you’re not going green, you’reviewed as a villain by many. However, no matter how much you invest in green technology, it isuseless if you don’t change habits that have been ingrained in you from childhood and over thecourse of your life. Green technology is useful only when:

You utilize it efficiently: If you’ve invested in a solar panel yet insist on using your oldwater heater, if you’ve installed energy efficient appliances yet hold on to your oldrefrigerator and stove because they’re still in good working condition, or if your home isnaturally insulated/aired yet you insist on using air conditioners and heating units, thenyou’re not using green technology efficiently. Green technology works only when youoptimize its use and minimize your overall energy usage.You minimize waste: There’re no significant gains to be realized when you replace allthe lights in your home with CFL bulbs, yet fail to switch them off when you don’t needto use them. Minimizing energy costs is all well and good, but it’s still a waste whenyou use energy unnecessarily, even if you’re expending just the minimum. So when youinvest in and install green technology, ensure that you don’t use much more energythan you need – shut your computer down when you’re not going to be using it for afew hours; remove charging units from the socket and switch off the main when you’redone charging your devices, and use the main switch to turn the TV off instead of justpointing your remote at it.You adopt greener habits: You may have just bought a hybrid car, but that doesn’tmean you have to drive it even to the store around the corner. Walk when you caninstead of taking your car, use the stairs even if your building is green and has energy-efficient elevators, avoid smoking to safeguard your health and the environment, andtry to minimize the effect of your carbon footprint as much as possible.


For green technology to be successful and sustainable, we have to change our way of life andadopt new habits, habits which may seem like drops in the ocean, but which have a significantrole to play in determining the future of our planet.

This guest post is contributed by Cathy Thomas, she writes on the topic of Computer Technician OnlineDegrees . She welcomes your comments at her email id: cathy83.thomas<@>gmail<.>com.

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Greenwashing

Everywhere we go recently it seems as though there is a brand new eco-friendly “green” versions of old products.  I have mentioned a few of these silly things like the 57 watt light bulb as a new energy efficient version of the 60 watt.

I have been coming across even more ludicrous examples, many of them outright lies.  Often you can see the absurdity just by looking at the contradictions in the advertising.  Phrases like “eco-friendly” and “contains mercury and lead” should not be on the same product.

I came across a good example the other day with a can of lithium grease.  The can is green of course and is pitched as a bio-based biodegradable lubricant.  If the warnings about calling poison control if ingested aren’t enough there is always the fact that Lithium is a metal and thus can not bio-degrade…ever.

This trend is a problem because in addition to claiming dangerous products are safe, overall the public believes things are changing for the better when in reality the packaging is just different. Consumers look around and things look like companies are being less wasteful but in the end it is just a marketing illusion.

2010 in review

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

Healthy blog!

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.

Crunchy numbers

Featured image

About 3 million people visit the Taj Mahal every year. This blog was viewed about 27,000 times in 2010. If it were the Taj Mahal, it would take about 3 days for that many people to see it.

In 2010, there were 8 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 67 posts. There were 18 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 1mb. That’s about 2 pictures per month.

The busiest day of the year was November 9th with 197 views. The most popular post that day was Multi-directional wind turbines for the home. Vertical Axis Wind Turbine VAWT.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were twitter.com, search.aol.com, green.alltop.com, engineerjobs.com, and facebook.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for earth, led, vawt, ethanol, and logging.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

1

Multi-directional wind turbines for the home. Vertical Axis Wind Turbine VAWT April 2009
4 comments

2

The thing about logging March 2009
6 comments

3

Why burning carbon is bad, Chaos Theory and Laws of Thermodynamics May 2009
2 comments

4

LED part two June 2009
7 comments

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