This week on Earth Beat, we look at how technology affects our relationship with the environment. From an artist who built a toaster from scratch to green mobile phone apps, and from Amish farm pollution problems to carbon footprint calculators we ask whether technology helps or hurts us on our quest to be green.
Listen to the whole show
The toaster project
Thomas Thwaites is an artist with a quest. In this age of mass production and technology, Thomas has produced something truly original. It’s called the toaster project.
Listen to Thomas talk about his work.
Watch videos of the work in progress. And see photos of the finished product below.
Step 1. Acquiring Iron Ore from Thomas Thwaites on Vimeo.
Step 2:Smelting Iron Ore in a Leafblower Furnace from Thomas Thwaites on Vimeo.
Step 2, Attempt 2: Smelting Iron Ore in a Microwave from Thomas Thwaites on Vimeo.
Envirominute
A 60-second round up of the environmental impact of today’s televisions.
Listen to the envirominute
Shopping for an environmentally-friendly TV
When Marnie’s TV finally died she knew it was time to let it go, so she consigned it to the attic and started looking at replacements. Six months on, and she still hasn’t found one – partly because of the scary chemicals used in flatscreen production. So she took Kim Schoppink, from Greenpeace TV, shopping, to try to find a green telly.
Listen to the shopping trip
62 projects to make with a dead computer
Dumping our unwanted electronics adds to the fast growing global pile of toxic e-waste. But just because your computer is broken doesn’t mean you have to chuck it. Not if you’re Randy Sarafan, the author of “62 projects to make with a dead computer (and other discarded electronics)” and he’s brought a whole new meaning to computer hacking…
Listen to the conversation
Randy has kindly shared one of his projects from the book with us - see how to make a computer fan into a squiggle-drawing machine here (pdf).
Dead computers fight infections?
And that list of alternative careers for computers just keeps growing. We’ve come across an idea that even Randy hasn’t discovered yet. The 63rd thing you can do with a dead computer? Fight deadly bacterial infections. Marnie spoke with one of the scientists behind the research, Dr. Aftar Matharu from the University of York and began by asking him how he made the leap from the screen to the hospital bed.
Listen to the conversation
Green apps
One tech innovation that’s replicating and spreading like a plague is the “app”, a bit of software that can be downloaded on mobile phones. There are over 100 thousand apps available including a number of green apps – everything from where to buy the most eco-friendly loo roll to how to plan your low carbon journey. But do they actually help you to make greener decisions? Charisse McAuliffe is CEO of GenGreen and producer of the free downloadable app Find Green.
Listen to the conversation
Calculating your green
Computers can also help out with the complex maths needed to calculate how much carbon a person produces each year. These carbon footprint calculators seem like a good way to make people more aware of how much energy they consume, but in the wrong hands, this simple online test can become a tool for channeling ego. In fact it brought out the ‘mean green’ in our very own Michele Ernsting…
Listen to the commentary
Low-tech, high eco-impact
Given the toxins produced by some electronics, you’d be forgiven for thinking that less technology equals more environmental. Here’s a story that says your wrong. Amish communities have been in Lancaster, Pennsylvania since the 1700s. And the families living there now still farm in more or less the same way their relatives did 300 years ago – that is, using animals to pull farming equipment, using manure from those animals to fertilize the crops. Idyllic. And good for the environment, right? Not necessarily.
Listen to the story
NEXT WEEK ON EARTH BEAT
Denying climate change…
The earth is resilient and it’s not going anywhere. Climate change is a fraud.
How would you feel if you had to purchase carbon credits? They only reason they’re doing it is because it’s going to generate income for people that are behind the scam.
I agree, I think it’s absolute bogus.
What the non-believers are saying, why they’re saying it, and what to do about it…
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I am a regular listener of most of the programs on radio Netherlands. The topic of global warming and climate change have become a strong point of conflicts between deniers and people who agree with this truth. We can correlate this situation with the fact that believers say that God exists and non-believers say that God does not exist and the line is drawn between them which divides them between atheist and believers. The same thing is going on with this topic. I am a science student and do not think that the subject of climate change and the facts are mere a hoax originating from multinational companies engaged in promoting green technologies. Let us agree by the fact whenever there are some issues brought in the lime light of the world, there are people who go to any lengths to deny it or call it a farce.
The whole science of climate change have been brought into cross roads between pseudo science and real science. The whole world have been divided between lines demarcating people between believers and non-believer of climate change. The so called climate-gate case was blown so much out of proportion that there have been placed a big question mark in front of this issue. I believe that no matter how much scientific data is produced to substantiate the facts behind the climate change, there will be some strong deniers of this science because this questions their way of life and deter their materialistic existence.
Now the question is what can be done? Let us educate people about the seriousness of the issue and tell them that either we should mend out ways of over exploitation of this planet and reduce our ecological footprint or else we will never be able to do anything to reduce carbon emissions once the train leaves the platform.
We should stop behaving like pathetic beings which only think about its present existence without caring for the generations to come. We should decide right now what kind of planet our generations are going to inherit.
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