by Worldchanging Austin local blogger, Sandra Burchsted: Until recently it was next to impossible to quantify the cost of our day to day activities in terms of their environmental impact. It’s hard to understand or manage something you can’t see. Intuitively we know that running a hair dryer consumes more energy than leaving a lamp on with a compact fluorescent light bulb. However, this information has been hidden from us, rendering the costs “out of sight out of mind.” This is changing…. Information about the real costs of our daily activities is becoming more accessible. Some interesting cultural changes have emerged from the increasing interest in making visible the invisible. We’re gaining what I think of as eco-sense and sensibility, meaning that as the costs and consequences of our lifestyle choices become visible, we become more sensitive — and sensible — about the choices we make with regard to the environment. With our personal impact in plain view, we can’t turn our heads, and the more we face the real consequences of our actions, the harder we’ll try to adapt our behavior towards lighter impact living. There are a host of new applications and gadgets on the market and in… (more)
(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Emerging Technologies at 12:50 PM)