Who knew tackling global warming could be so fun?
A Boston-area entrepreneur has launched a Web site called Carbonrally that aims to marry online games and social networks with consumers' desire to shrink their carbon footprint.
Carbon reduction mashup--see how is your team doing.
(Credit: Carbonrally)Here's how it works. The company behind Carbonrally, Carbon Challenge, regularly posts a "challenge" that translates into a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. Choosing filtered tap water over bottled water, for example, translates into reducing 3 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions a week. (No plastic bottles involved.)
Individuals or teams can take up the challenge. Typically, it's the "dark green" consumers who take on the challenges, says founder Jason Karas, who studied environmental management but took a detour into Internet management for 10 years.
But ganging up to take on other teams, in a friendly competition kind of way, is what gets people really fired up.
A group of 17 "tweenagers" from New Jersey just passed Google's Pittsburgh office in carbon reductions. Google Pittsburgh, meanwhile, is duking it out with Google's Cambridge crew. "We're taking Cambridge down!" the Steel Town Googlers say.
There are already several carbon calculators out there available from carbon offset companies and other sources. Make Me Sustainable is another Web site for managing your carbon diet. Carbon Rally wants to keep it quick and light, while tapping into people's tribal competitive spirit.
"We don't have to get people worked up and bummed out about climate change," Karas said. "We've giving them a place where they have an opportunity to act on that emotion."
The company expects to make revenue by having its challenges sponsored by corporations that offer environmentally oriented products or are looking to green up their image.
Another planned feature is to have "carbon ralliers" themselves offer challenges to others.
Carbon footprint, energy use, green tech: some phrases that won't be going away. From gasoline prices to global warming, we're likely to become more aware of what energy we burn up, just as most of us now have some sense of whether we're eating wisely (or not).
Front page of carbon calculator
(Credit: earthlab)Just today the Live Earth concert folks e-mailed me a link to their carbon calculator. This one walks you through several pages of simple questions about how you live, and especially how you travel. This calculator was built by Earthlab.org. They want to know the size of your dwelling, your car if you own one, energy bills, airplane and daily travel. After going through their process, I can't imagine how bad an airline pilot would look, environmentally speaking.
My score on the Earthlab quiz: 301, and 11 tons of carbon. So I'm clearly doing my bit to warm the planet. Live Earth folks say they'll post overall test scores and more information on 7-7-07.
Then there's this site, which gives you the really bad news--how many planets humanity would need to supply energy if everybody lived as you do. My score: 6.3 planets. I think that translates into a couple more solar systems 'cause I don't get the sense there's a whole lot of oil, coal or biofuels to be had out beyond Venus. I could probably do nicely with a tiny sun, however.
Then the Yahoo folks have built a carbon dioxide emissions calculator. My score was pretty much the same as what I got from Earthlab...until I added in my infrequent air travel. From a few plane trips: 21.8 tons of carbon dioxide. Where are the calls for solar planes? Or goose-powered, or human-paddled balloons, or something? How about those Star Trek transponders that would beam you up? Could they be energy efficient? No crappy airline "food" either.
Altogether these sites are: depressing, educational, geared to getting you to do something about your consumption patterns. Turn off your work computer when you are done for the day (or night). Carry your own shopping bags. Use alternative energy when possible. Use efficient bulbs and appliances. Walk more. Freak out over air travel. All good advice. And aimed at making each of us less of a carbon bigfoot.
- prev
- 1
- next
