terrible environment killing terrible person

[deird_lj]

Yes, I left my work computer on all night. I am terrible and energy wasting, and must be shunned.

(Although I did, in fact, turn my screen off, so I'm not all bad.)


Apparently work has decided that the best strategy for turning us into Happy Little Energy Savers is to shame/bribe us into it. By giving people who turn off their computers chocolate, and taping Big Black Balloons Of Nasty Blackness to the computers that were still on.

(One might wonder if, in fact, the energy wasted by manufacturing hundreds of black balloons is going to balance out the energy saved by turning the computers off... if one were cynical and heartless and uncaring.)


And yes, I got a black balloon. Oh the shame.

The thing is, the work computers are ancient. And turning them on takes about five or six minutes. During which you can't wander off and do something else, because every minutes or so you have to press a button so that they keep turning on.
I am not willing to waste that much time every morning.

Also, our work email system completely closes all emails every time it's turned off, so you can't go back to something you were working on earlier - you have to start all over again.
I am not willing to track down all the emails I was dealing with AGAIN every single morning.


*will continue to waste energy until work upgrades their computer system, you morons*

Comments

[the-starshadow.livejournal.com]

Ok, lemme do a back of the envelope environmental assessment. In my head. Somehow.
So, making a black balloon requires X amount of plastic, which is ultimately based on oil, unless it's recycled, but we'll assume it wasn't coz that'd make it more ironic.
Then there's the energy required to make said balloon, which requires, probably, X amounts of coal.
Then there's the petrol burned by the truck to take the balloon from the factory to the store to your office etc etc. (Not to mention the fuel to transport the petrol.) Technically you could look at making the truck itself, but unless its only job is to transport black balloons around, it's probably not relevant.
Then, there's the helium that goes in the balloons, if there's helium. Ignoring the fact that the world's supply of helium is becoming depleted, helium is extracted from fractional distillation of natural gas. But that'd probably happen anyway in the refining process, so it's probably not important.

So... does making a black balloon and taping it to your computer create more greenhouse gas than the computer did? Possibly. It'd be passable if they used the same balloon over and over again, but apparently they're not. So what they've inadvertently done is challenge you to a pollution contest, by matching your CO2 emitting computer with their CO2 emitting balloons. It's like they're saying "We're going to shame you into turning your computer off by generating even more pollution on your behalf." Which is an actually kinda cool way of doing it, when you think about it.

[deird1]

Right. I'm going to win the pollution contest.

*determinedly starts turning on electrical stuff*