I covered this issue briefly before, but it’s been playing on mind of late after coming across a variety of articles, showing that it’s becoming a topic starting to spark some debate…

What am I talking about? The carbon footprint of the internet!

Surfing the internet, you generally forget that behind the site you are browsing are a variety of power consumers. Your computer, your router, your ISP’s computers and routers, the website hosts’ computers and routers and all the intermediary computers that route you between them, and if you came through a search engine, then that has to be factored in to the equation to.

I think we would all generally agree that the Internet is a good thing, so how can we be more environmentally friendly in our web browsing? It’s a tough one, but here’s a few ideas.

Firstly, researchers are working on power saving routing algorithms, (those algorithms that connect you to where you want to be) based on demand, time of the day and climate vs available renewable energy resources. It’s an interesting concept, but as this Treehugger article points out, it could result in most data centres being powered by coal, I guess it very much depends on the client.

Changing the nature of the backbone of the internet is out of reach for most, so more immediately, what can you do to green up your website and internet experience? Planet Green recently published 6 fairly simple and cost effective tips on how to ‘green’ your website, some are fairly obvious, so aren’t…

Finally (for this article anyway) we have Greenscroll, a kind of carbon offset service for websites, they claim to (for admin costs only, i.e. not for profit) invest a monthly amount of money from you into green power energy projects. An interesting concept, I would be intrigued to know if anyone has had experience in using it.

Further to Chris’ article on living in small spaces, I came across the website of David Michael Bruno and his 100 Thing Challenge. In November 2008, David pledged to live for one year with only 100 personal items. All other items had to be thrown away/donated/gifted. If he buys one thing he has to remove another.

I’m an extremely poor de-clutterer like most crafters, so I am somewhat aghast at such a concept but also secretly envious. Crafting (mostly) with a recycled/upcycled ethos means I am constantly sourcing materials from charity shops, other crafters, haberdashery… So I challenged myself last year to craft for a month without buying any materials to add my craft. It was actually quite hard in some respects. In some ways I realised how I had been preferencing the urge to shop over the urge to create. Consumerism seems so much safer than creativity. No risk or making a mistake or being judged for your efforts. I had in the past surrounded myself with vintage and recycled goods as a testament to my aesthetic.

That said, we are moving house soon, so I find myself in a position of having to declutter. It’s another challenge! Argh!

I’ve had this bookmarked for  sometime, maybe we even posted something about it before, but as we question how we live (especially in Melbourne and it’s sprawling suburbs of large houses) in cities, maybe we all have to be prepared to make more efficient use of living spaces.

This article from Treehugger shows some very efficient living spaces from Europe which are all very well designed and probably expensive. I’ve seen some cheaper examples here in Melbourne of efficient space usage, a friend lived in  a tiny room with a bunk bed, a desk underneath and shelves running around the room at various levels, it wasn’t that pleasant but still, a good use of space.

What are your views on efficient use of living space? Any ideas? Is it necessary? Would you be prepared to do it?

I remember a few years back that the computerisation of offices, home offices and home admin would herald the reduction of paper consumption, this never seemed to happen, in fact,paper consumption since computerisation has actually increased, with an increasing amount of people not thinking when printing and wasting trees on a variety of pointless output…

This is a personal bugbear of mine, I hate wasting paper and look for as many ways as possible to save my usage, I’m perfectly happy to read digital copies, reuse paper etc…

So imagine my ‘excitement’ when I found Lifehacker’s complete guide to going paperless!

Enjoy

After the successful Green Renters workshop at the Melbourne Social Forum in April we will be starting a run of three at CERES in East Brunswick from the 5th of September.

The workshops are a practical and lively discussion of ideas on greening up your rental property. We step through the typical rental property area by area, looking in detail at what you can do as well as general lifestyle changes. There will be demonstrations and samples of some of our favourite recipes and tutorials to try and take away, showing you just how easy it is to achieve noticeable and tasty results!

Here are the dates :

5th September
3rd October
$28 / $18

Visit www.ceres.org.au or email us to register for a workshop.

Green Pages had a nice little article about decorating your house to make it more environmentally friendly, not all were ‘renter friendly’, so I thought I’d select a few key point…

• Minimise your lighting – Not completely decorating related, but it’s easy to switch off lights when you’re not using them. Take a look at those small decorative lamps, what bulbs do they have? If you can’t get an energy saving bulb to fit it, do you need to use it? Why not try candles?
• Get intimate – We’ve become somewhat obsessed with space and our own space, why not get cosy with your housemates, especially in winter. Plan your seating areas away from doors, windows and draughts.
• Second hand gems – We’ve visited this topic a few times, but have a good op shop / hard waste / gumtree raid for second hand goodies to decorate your house.
• Colourise – Paint can actually have a lot of impact on the brightness and heat of your home, we’re lucky enough to have a Landlord who doesn’t seem to care about the state of his property (not always an advantage!) and we painted our house ourselves, you may not be so lucky…

The CSIRO are carrying out a survey into “Lifestyles, consumption and environmental impact: National Household Consumption”

Lets get some renter’s opinions into there!