>ECOBOT is offering a free carbon calculator for your personal computer designed to track your carbon footprint by keeping tabs of your fuel, power and paper usage. Neat idea, right? Maybe the device would help make people more energy conscious like those new electricity meters being installed in some homes as part of the stimulus package. However, as reported on Treehugger, much of the important data to calculate an accurate carbon footprint has to be entered manually – http://www.treehugger.com. This is a deterrent for all the lazy people out there. What the device does automatically is track your computer and thus your position via satellite and then asks you upon your arrival at a destination how you reached that point. Sounds awfully Orwellian to me but I suppose it can’t be any worse than the Patriot Act or the secret surveillance programs of the Bush administration. At least people sign up to be tracked by the calculator. What would be beneficial is to have a thoroughly automatic devise to calculate your footprint, or a combination of different calculators to track home energy, fuel and paper use in addition to transportation energy use. I bet smart meters in both homes and cars would make people more aware of just how much energy we consume in this country. Let’s move on from the 1984 mentality of energy consumption and into 2009 and beyond.
