Realistic Approach to Conservation

Some of the world's problems seem unconquerable these days. Take the energy crisis for example; we could probably sell our SUV, ride our bikes more often or turn in our empties to redeem the CRV, but what's the impact? The problem is that for some reason this doesn't feel like enough; we can't see any impact so we don't change our habits.

Well, what if there was a way to see how our actions impact society? Relight NY is a good start. It's an interactive site that lets you do good and see the tangible results. It lets you adopt a building in NYC and tasks you with converting all it's lighting to CFL. The objective is to get organizations or schools to help make NYC more efficient and help the city conserve massive amounts of energy. Most importantly, it provides a way to see the progress and encourage action to accomplish a goal that will positively benefit the community.

For a while now there have been a lot of good ways to conserve energy, like recycling, eating local food or giving up your car, but the difficult thing seems to be finding a way to get people on board. What if we find more ways to involve everyone, to change habits? Nike Plus allows people to track their workout behavior, compare their progress with other in the community and compete with their athletic friends.

Well now there's a way for you to show off how green you. Wattson is the Nike Plus of energy. They have a transmitter that connects to your electric lines between your fuse box and electric meter that sends data to an alarm clock looking device that you can set up in your house. Holmes is the software this device pairs with that allows you to analyze your power usage and determine ways to become more efficient.

I think this is a great idea because often we forget how much money we are spending by leaving the lights on or the computer running. If we're constantly reminded that we're racking up the bill maybe we'll be more likely to conserve?