January 14, 2005

Only YOU can prevent global warming. By turning off your screensaver and adopting instead a "carbonsaver."
posted by SideDish 19 years ago
  • As creator Jeremy Webb says, "Did you know that if Microsoft started shipping Windows XP with the screensaver turned off, we would save 2375000000 kilowatt/hours of electricity and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 1616379 tonnes each year!" does this make sense?
  • no
  • I think it has to do with the fact that many companies and people don't ever shut their computers off. So as to not ruin their screens, they use the screen savers, but I guess you could just turn off the damn monitor... lazy. I wonder now many kilowatts and carbon dioxide emissions would be reduced if TV was never invented...
  • When I still had a regular job, all my colleagues left their big ass screens (graphic design company) on when they left. Even on the weekends. Since I was usually the last one to leave I went into the habit of turning all those screens off, and in the weekend I even powered down all the machines (nobody did any rendering). Of course I got into trouble with the system admin because one Monday a couple of those Macs didn't want to boot anymore and that was my fault.
  • Can one even get burn-in on flat-panel or notebook screens?
  • yes
  • no
  • maybe
  • LCD:No. Plasma: Yes. But it's not all bad
  • That was one of my pet peeves some time ago at work. People would powerdown their macs, but forget to shut down their screens, as they went for lunch or took a break. So there they were, blinking their power buttons (and the screens were ON, just showing black, which was easy to see with the lights off). I ended up installing a picture in the Shutdown Items folder, so as the machine was shutdown, it would display 'Remember to shut down monitor NOW' for a brief moment. That helped.
  • Modern monitors are almost all Energy Star, which means that if they don't get a signal for X amount of time, they'll go into a seriously low-power mode. I recommend a sleep mode rather than powering off for anything short of about a week of downtime, because the energy consumption is less than the amount of power you'd waste on the boot-up cycle. You can also set most computers nowadays with Energy Star settings to put the monitor to sleep after a few minutes. Not as big of a deal with LCDs, but definitely with CRTs. Switching to LCD is probably a better way to reduce long-term energy costs, though.
  • darn right there sandspider. i think in the interest of saving the planet i need to replace my 21" CRT and my 25" TV with a 21" LCD and a nice flat widescreen HDTV (not plasma of course, as plasma is a huge energy hog!). in the interest of saving my wallet, anybody with a really gloomy outlook of the future wanna help make yourself feel better about the impending doom of global warming by subsidizing my move to a greener me?
  • Subsidize you? Didn't you just buy a new motor? Rather think you should drive over my place & we'll get pissed.. on environmentally friendly lager.
  • Oh sorry, it wasn't you. Where's my brain today? Bleh.
  • The year before last my darlin' gave me a 19 in. NEC LCD monitor. I can't say how much I love it. Since I have very poor 'up-close' eyesight and wear tri-focals, it has been a blessing in helping my reading onscreen. Not to mention it's small footprint and other nifty features. He even got a good rebate on it and it it still a comparable value as to when issued.
  • Handy recycling tip. When your monitor is ready to be retired burn in an image of the virgin Mary and auction it off on ebay.