World Shutdown Day is tomorrow—can you do it? Advertised as one of the “biggest global experiments ever to take place on the Internet”, the idea is to find out how many people can go without a computer for one whole day. What will happen if we all participate? If we really do keep off the computers for 24 hours tomorrow, all Emails will go unanswered, and blogs won’t be updated. During lunch breaks, people might talk to their co-workers or go for a walk outside, or buy a newspaper. At home, computer games will cease and instead we will have lunch together and talk about the world. And then read a book in the afternoon. But the real issue is how addicted are we all to our computers? On the Shutdown Day site at last glance, the running tally is 51,635 claiming that they CAN go without computers, whilst 8,075 have admitted they cannot. The site, in 13 different languages, charts people’s reactions from around the world on what they will do instead… National differences abound: in the UK: masturbation, playing the piano, Canada: smoke dope, hang out with my family, the U.S.: read one of those flappy things with the paper screens and from Sri Lanka: this is a disaster. Some of the YouTube responses are quite clever such as one depicting the smashing of computers. But never mind that, the question is: can treehuggers do it? :: Shut Down Day via :: PFSK

Originally
from TreeHugger

reBlogged

on Mar 23, 2007, 7:14AM
Originally from TreeHugger on March 23, 2007, 12:14pm

Hooray for Spain! Well, for Navarra, anyway. And definitely not for the Spanish nat’l football team. Them I don’t like. But, turbine building Spaniards, they’re alright by me.

The region of Navarra, in Northeastern Spain, better known in the U.S. for the “running of the bulls” in Pamplona. But in this region, approximately 70% of the electricity comes from the wind and the sun. With no coal, oil or gas of its own, this mountainous region deliberately went for renewable energy in the late 1980s. The first wind farm was built in full view of the regional capital Pamplona, so that people could get used to it. Now, with some 1,100 windmills dotted all over Navarra, this tiny region is capable of generating more electricity from renewable sources than big EU countries like France or Poland. Navarra plans to reach 100% renewable energy generation by 2010.

Originally from TreeHugger on March 22, 2007, 4:57pm

[tags]urbaneco, wind power, solar power, turbine[/tags]