In case you didn’t notice, yesterday was Earth Day. I’m not a big fan of whatever-days, but there’ve been a couple of interesting events in the last 24 hours that stimulated my interest.
First, Dopplr added a carbon calculator service. Discussing it last night with MattB, I mentioned the fact that for the first time a web two service makes me feel guilty, and felt a bit ashamed too when it prompted me to share the carbon profile with other travellers. He replied that the idea is to push people into starting conversations on the subject, and I think this is a good way to raise awareness. As Matt Jones puts it:
It’s not enforcing any particular course of action – it’s the weighing scales, not the diet.
What we all do with this information is up to us.
On a similar pattern, today in Milan at The Next Web Now (Microsoft event) FIAT presented Ecodrive: new FIAT cars are equipped with a sensor that register CO2 emissions; data can be stored in a USB drive and dumped in a PC for analysis and access by the driver.
The idea is kinda neat, and makes every FIAT 500 a potential 6 gears OpenSpime :)
Update: Information Aesthetics posted about this video today. Neat: