A couple of weeks back I attended the Kleenex Pin4Good event in the Sydney CBD; along with the likes of Kate Pickle, my beautiful Kristie, and Mr ProBlogger (I wish I was name dropping. Not. They were the only other people– apart from the amazingly tall Mel Doyle– that I recognized).
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| Mel and I- please do note my 100% re- or up-cycled outfit, especially thrown together for the day in the ten minutes before I left. |
Despite the recognizable irony of a sustainability event being run by Kleenex, it was quite pleasant and enlightening. You can check out my woeful attempts at playing Pinterest for the first time here…. I still just don’t get it. But it was the discussion following the frenzied Pinning session got me all inspired.
I was expecting a lot of chatter about suburban chooks and recycled light globes. Don’t get wrong– I dig both those things. What I wasn’t expecting was for the talk to take an edge that I’ve been curious about but hasn’t really been made mainstream yet… and I’ve been too damn lazy to follow it up myself.
I’m a self confessed über geek and suburban hippy. I love my Kindle and my worm farm in equal measures. And I believe the two can skip blissfully through the meadows together, leaving as light a carbon footprint as they dare. So discussing whether two percent of iPower is better for the planet than hand written notes on two pages of A4; or the carbon offset of Skyping in a presenter versus flying them interstate… well. That just tickles my blog pickle in all the right places.
The concept of blogging sustainably was touched on very briefly; so I did what every good blogger does, and consulted the Google God just as soon as I got home (and got those screaming offspring of mine in bed). And I found something pretty damn awesome– and not least because the button comes in a lurid shade of pink, as well as blue or green; which works beautifully with the decor I’ve got going on here.
‘Mach Gruins’ is German for ’Make Green’. It’s incrediblyy simple, and, so far as I can tell, legit and currently active. You write a blog post (see exhibit A– what I’m doing right now), pop the button on your sidebar (exhibit B, to the right over there), and email the link through to the Mach Gruins people.
Who then plant a tree. Yes- a real, lives tree. Which works to offset the carbon emissions produced by your blog. For life. (Skeptics… Mach Gruins have done their research here. I’m taking their word for it. Somebody let me know if it’s all wrong, OK?)
And that’s pretty much it. RRSAHM is now a co2 neutral website.
My inner geek and hippy stroll off, hand in hand, to celebrate with copious amounts of Coca–Cola, Angus and Julia Stone and a game of Monopoly on the iPad.
And we all lived sustainably ever after.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Fantastic blog. Your links in this are wonderful. I went via all this and I very many thanks for your advice.
Is that tree planting deal still going? I went and looked at the site and it says all trees will be planted in the summer of 2010.
That woman is clearly an Amazon. Wow. Off I go to plant a tree
I think I'll check this out next time I am at a puter where I can edit my blog site. Very cool Lori
I share a similar blend of hippy and yuppy. My husband calls me a yippy, which is prefereble to huppy I suppose.
Have NEVER considered whether my blog was carbon neutral or not! Seeing as my latest post rejoices in a tree being cut down (bad me), I would have to get them to plant two for me