subject: Daddy, What Did You Do To Stop Global Warming? - I Bought A Green Mobile Phone. by:Karl Sinclaire-Anderson [print this page] You might have seen it? The original picture postcard card from world war one, whereby a little girl sits on her father's knee and the son sits by his feet playing with lead soldiers. And the by-line on the card says 'Daddy, what did you do in the war'. And the father looks on blankly.
In its day it was used to 'guilt' men into action to join up, so that later in life they would be proud to be able to tell their children of their efforts during one of the world's most perilous times.
Well the same post card is now used in a mock comic way to comment on global warming. The picture remains the same but this time, the son instead of playing with soldiers, looks onward at a globe and the card now says 'Daddy - what did you do about climate change'.
Buying a green mobile phone might seem a trite answer, but it's actually part of the greater solution.
Sadly there is an environmental impact in owning a mobile phone, if you were to talk on your mobile for an hour a day for a year; you can produce up to a tonne of CO2, that's about the equivalent of a trip by jet from London to New York? When you realise that there 4.1 billion handsets in the world and you add the fact, that mobile phones sales are growing by 5% a year, then the figures become alarmingly significant.
How do we prevent environmental change, how do minimise its impacts. The urgent need would seem to be to slow it down and then reverse the rise in atmospheric CO2 levels. But with the earth warming up faster than at anytime in its history, and the five hottest years on record within the last decade; then yes, Daddy what are you doing about it?
There are lots of factors causing climate change, not all of them are down to mobile phones. But greener mobiles thankfully along with other green technologies are indeed part of the greater solution.
Yes its true, green mobiles generally use recycled materials, their design and production process looks to reduce their resource impact on raw minerals. Environmentally friendly mobile phones typically don't use poisonous chemicals such lead, polyvinyl chloride (PVC), brominates flame retardants cadmium or mercury.
Some of the biggest differences between a normal phone and a green mobile phone are in the latter's energy saving ability. A good eco phone will use between 50% and 80% recycled plastics in its design. They can be charged with solar power, or kinetic energy or they just come with improved energy saving abilities. Or they come supplied with a charger that switches it self when the battery is charged; thus not wasting any more energy. This means eco designed handsets have much smaller carbon footprints than normal phones, because their environmental impact has been thought through more.
So maybe if you are asked the question in the future, what did you do to stop climate change? You can answer happily; we changed the way we did things and with it the world changed.
About the author
Karl Sinclaire-Anderson loves new technologies, anything that helps us perform better about our day in the world. An MBA, he has been working in the green arena for 11 years. He is currently MD of Greenermobiles
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