Earth Day the Geek Way

Earth Day began in 1970 by then Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson who was so distraught by a recent oil spill off the coast of California and inspired by recent student anti-war protest that he called for an acknowledgement or celebration of the planet to be held on April 22nd each year. 20 million people participated that first year but the day has escalated to include 175 countries and over half a billion people now.  So instead of searching  for #sideboobsunday twit pics today lets do earth day the geek way.

Everyone reading this owns a cell phone. You might even be reading this on one. Cell phones are among the fastest growing sources of waiste. The average American gets a new phone every 18-20 months (that’s when we get the upgrade deals from our providers and we’re all cheap bastards) and a cell phone can contain lead, mercury, arsenic, old lace, robot parts, and other potentially harmful to the earth thingies (I was JK about the old lace and robot parts… well depending on the phone). Consider recycling your cell phone. Most major cities have multiple cell phone recycling centers and drop offs through out them. I know here the Tulsa Zoo usually allows free admission every year during Earth Day in exchange for dropping off your old cell phone. You have a computer and it has access to search engines, Google the locations and celebrations near you.

Show Joss Whedon how big a fan you are and be a Vampire Slayer. Dye your hair blonde, hang out with werewolves played by Seth Green, and pull the two fanged power sucking monsters out of the wall when not in use. Chords to laptops, tv’s, cell phone chargers, docking stations, etc all draw power rather on or off. I know we’re not all going to  reset our alarm clocks every night before bed (if you’re not already depending entirely on your phone to wake up like you do for every other aspect of your life) because it’s been unplugged all day. I keep a plethura of chords and chargers next to my bed and it is no effort to reach over every morning and unplug the tablet’s vampire buddy, and my phone’s power sucking metal-fanged friend.

If your really awesome and super cheap you’ll figure out how to put up solar panels to power all of those devices we can’t live without. Maybe a nice mini wind farm in your back yard generating power for your robot army. If you don’t have the means to do this maybe fire up Netflix and just watch Grizzly Man or Blue Planet to get in the right mindset and better understand what we’re trying to protect.

The world is slipping ever closer to that neotech Johnny Mnemonic future with every new app and electronic drummed out. I spend three to four hours a day looking at a screen instead of the real world. I read comics, books, and watch videos everyday in a digital way. It’s not going to change. What we can do is at least make those small efforts to conserve the power and reduce the pollutants our lifestyles may be putting out. Energy Star phone chargers, TV’s, and other gadgets and gizmos reduce power consumption while in standby mode or powered off. That at least saves you dollars in the long run. Who doesn’t want to save dollars? Earth Day may almost be over but that doesn’t mean we need to stop thinking about it.

Go Geek. Go Green.

About Eric bookout

Writer/Artist for X amount of years. Recently worked with people from IGN on a comic and studied writing under Victor Gischler of Marvel Comics at RSU in Oklahoma more X amount of years ago. Follow me @WerewolfOrigin on twitter
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