Beam me to Planet Gore !
Posted on 11/28/2008 12:05:22 PM PST by Abathar
If you're planning this holiday season (perhaps even today) to become one of the tens of millions of people in the U.S. to buy a video game system, you may want to consider how the purchase of a Nintendo Wii, Sony PlayStation or Microsoft Xbox will impact your carbon footprint (or, at very least, your electric bill).
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a New York-based environmental organization, in a new report says that video game systems are huge energy wasters, mostly because people (read: kids) tend to leave them on even when they're not using them.
The study, conducted with Portland, Ore., environmental research and consulting firm Ecos Consulting, found that game consoles (40 percent of U.S. homes have at least one) consume an estimated 16 billion kilowatt hours per year—roughly equal to the annual electricity use of the city of San Diego. This energy usage isn't going to drop anytime soon: Between 2002 and 2007 more than 62 million video game consoles were sold in the U.S. (Wii was the No. 1 seller, followed by PlayStation and the Xbox). The Washington Post reports that the National Institute on Media and the Family found that 92 percent of kids, ages two to 17, play video games regularly.
Sony PlayStation 3 (which uses 150 Watts of energy) and Microsoft Xbox 360 (which uses 119 Watts) are the biggest offenders, while the Nintendo Wii draws less than 20 Watts, according to the NRDC report. The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 each if left on all the time, consume more than 1,000 kilowatt-hours each year—equal to the energy use of two new refrigerators. The PlayStation 3, which can also be used as a high-definition video player, uses five times the power of a stand-alone Sony Blu-ray player to show the same movie.
(Excerpt) Read more at sciam.com ...
I bet that the local artist who welds scrap metal into modern art will get a pass though, even from Larry Greenemeier
The Left gets much of its power from guilt. They plant it and then manipulate it. And then offer themselves as absolution from the bogus guilt that they themselves implanted.
Maybe I’ll buy both a Wii AND PS3, just to piss off Liberals.
That's the larger question.
Please do not tell my 13 year old son, he might feel guilty about his carbon foot print...... possibly.
It was PONG!
Indoor appliances (including gaming machines) do not waste any energy during heating season.
I will tell my 12 year old son that he can’t use his XBox anymore because his “carbon footprint” is getting too big.
Then again I will eventually have to go to sleep sometime...
I’ll bet a cigarette or pipe or cigar puts out more heat than a video game or watching PBS on an old TV .... must be a slow science day ....
Luckily this advice will be ignored by a huge majority of Americans. How lame is this author and the study? More money down the drain. I don’t have any game system at all, but this article might have convinced me that perhaps my kids do deserve one after all...lol. They have tried for years to get me and my wife to purchase one for them, but I have always been against it. Now I am seriously reconsidering it. My kids will faint on Christmas morning knowing that Santa finally answered their wish.
“Son we thought it would very green of us to gift you this basket-weaving kit.”
more junk science from Scientific American. thanks, Rennie!
Santa? Geez, don’t let him have the credit, big ticket items like that in our family always come with the tag signed by dad and mom.
I’d try to increase my carbon footprint.
Blah Blah Blah!
It the lefty eco-weenie hand wringers hadn’t kept U.S. from building more nuclear plants over the last 30+ years, this point would be moot!
Silly ecoweenies, life is for grown ups.
“I’ll bet a cigarette or pipe or cigar puts out more heat than a video game or watching PBS on an old TV”
Maybe, but when my family gathers around the PS3 for a little violence, we bask in the warmth of a 50” plasma tv and a 1200w home theater.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say they contribute to global warming as I do not believe in it, but I would say that video games have greatly contributed to the obesity of kids. They sit on their asses playing these games when they should be outside playing more.
I agree that like anything else it should be in moderation.
Some parents use them as a babysitter, we have limits at our house.
Yes but - it’s the heater not the PS3 that’s messing up our planet ... quit that!!!!!
And then offer themselves as absolution from the bogus guilt that they themselves implanted.
You mean offer a ‘guilt tax’ you can pay them for absolution like a carbon default swap?
I bet there’d be a big market for a video game called “Doom the Eco-Nazis.” Lots of splattered greenies...
I think I will go fire up my PS3, 42” Panasonic plasma , 910W energy hogging Yamaha receiver and revel in some death and destruction on screen. Knowing that I am raising the temperature of the globe while at it will make it all the more enjoyable.
Or elect their candidate to prove you aren’t what they say you are.
Or adopt the attitudes they want you to adopt for the same reasons.
In the end, envy and guilt and conformity are the hand-holds the Left uses to achieve its ends.
If it will keep us from having an unprecedented fifth snow before January, I will game and even buy a new system!
Scientific American abandons science for politics.
IMO, it did that a long time ago.
I think we energy users should be paid an inverse carbon stipend.
We're helping stave off the new ice age.
From what I have read the PS3 has a folding option too.
Just give them the box for the Xbox 360, your kids will love you for it :)
http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1804773
Apparently the author has not been notified that the latest
PS3 firmware update now includes a welcomed auto off feature.
I have mine set to shut off automatically after one hour of inactivity.
And what exactly does that come to in electric-bill dollars?
Answer: About $90 (if I’m correctly understanding my electric co-op’s billing guide).
Man, That was friggin CRUEL!!!!
The poor kid held his composure pretty well though.
What kind of dumb-assed a-hole family would think that was funny?
Yet another reminder of why I don’t buy Political — uh — Scientific American. The left really spoils everything they infest.
That was just plain ROTTEN!
Cow Tax? EPA looking into regulating greenhouse gases
Palestine Herald Press | November 26, 2008 | Wayne Stewart
Posted on 11/28/2008 2:18:57 PM PST by Sparko
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2139746/posts
Cost of reducing emissions by 2030 likely to surge: UN report
(hundreds of billions$ more needed)
AFP on Yahoo | 11/28/08 | AFP
Posted on 11/28/2008 11:55:10 AM PST by NormsRevenge
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2139690/posts
Climate fight costs may be three times more (UNFCCC report)
Reuters | 11/27/08 | Reuters
Posted on 11/28/2008 12:00:12 PM PST by NormsRevenge
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2139693/posts
When Obama delivers on his promise to bankrupt the coal industry and cause electric rates to skyrocket we may be sitting in the dark unable to afford to light our homes and appliances let alone run video games or be waiting for the wind to blow and the solar cells to heat up so we can get our daily ration of government subsidized electricity.
Visit www.carbonbelchday.com for more wonderful ways to make your carbon footprint bigger ideas!!!! Yes, it’s a real day and I say we should celebrate it with bigger SUVs and every appliance running!
It’s been in the 20’s at night here in the south (GA) for the last few weeks and Global Cooling stinks, so I say fire up all the equipment we can and lets turn this globe of ours to “toasty wam”....Ohh whats that you say...global warming is a joke...yeah I know that...but I just love to twist those liberal-weenie buttons!
Having said that, this argument is so asinine I am seriously thinking of buying one just to yank their chain...
They did that in the early 80s, when I was fed up with the trend to "relevance.
After 30 years a subscriber, I cancelled and have not felt I ever missed anything of value.
Same, incidentally, for National Geographic.
I quit National Geographic for the same reason, and I won’t even go into my complaints about Smithsonian mag.
The normally very conservative Popular Mechanics is starting to lean the same way - every article seems to be about the latest "green" technology.
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