I was in the car on my way home the other day listening to the radio because my iPod is broken (bloody Steve Jobs, but that’s a rant for another day), the presenter on the show was talking about the environmental problems the world faces and how we should all be doing our bit to stop wasting energy. I’m all up for us doing our bit for the Planet, I used to watch Captain Planet[1], it was a great show! Suggested ways or saving energy were switching your TV off instead of having it on standby and only plugging your phone in until it’s charged. Now telling people to do these things is fine but how many of them are actually going to bother doing it and how long for? I’ll tell you: Not many and not for long!

Surely, surely we’d be far better of if Mobile phones were designed to stop using electricity once they’ve charged and if TVs actually just switch off instead of going on standby. I remember being lectured at school about not leaving the TV on standby so its not like its a new problem. I’m not talking about getting up and switching the TV off at the button like a man from the Past, why can’t they design a TV so the remote control can switch the TV off and on?

What is it exactly that we “Standing-by” for? Its almost as if the manufacturers are trying to trick us into wasting energy! If the devices were designed to automatically not waste energy then people wouldn’t need to think about it. I’m sure they are technicalities involved but you’d think some clever engineer somewhere could come up with a solution.

Anyway that’s my rant over until next time THE POWER IS YOURS!

[1] For those of you too young to remember Captain Planet he was a big blue buff guy that could fly and loved tree’s, the environment, recycling, that sort of thing. Captain Planet had a crew called The Planeteers who all had magical rings (ooh urrr), and when they touched their rings magical things would happen. As I said it was a great show. Captain Planet was similar in many ways to Toxic Crusaders another Action Cartoon from the mid-nineties where the good guys battled pollution.