Jean-Jacques Halans ‹› Afterhours

It’s Blog Action Day today. That means bloggers around the world blog about the same topic. This year it’s climate change.

Climate change affects everyone, even the deniers. What’s the cause of climate change? Our hunger for energy. Energy to power our desktops and laptops, our iPhones, our LCD/plasma screens…

Have a look around the office this morning (let’s say early 8am). How many people are around? How many PCs and screens are on, showing their screensaver, and doing nothing? Yes, it’s easy to press a button and have it on instantly. But it’s a serious waste of energy, and money paying for that energy.

Why do people leave their PC on overnight? It might be corporate policy to back up overnight. But shouldn’t files be stored on a file server anyway? Aren’t there images of fully installed OS’s for whenever something goes wrong? And can a backup server not remotely wake a PC from hibernation over Wake-On-LAN to do its stuff?

And, no, turning off your monitor does not turn off your PC (like in the movies). But there is a simple solution, the other way around: a Master/Slave powerboard. You plug in your PC as Master, and your screen(s) as Slave, and when your PC gets into sleep or hibernation, or ideally you turn it off, your screen(s) (and printer, scanner) will get turned off automatically. This is a very low impact (on your productivity) solution, which saves heaps of energy each year for your company, helping its bottom line, and the planet.

Poverty manifests itself through different guises. When we think of poverty, we’d immediately recall a homeless person or a malnourished African child, a reflection of economical poverty. Social poverty is the result of lack of social capital. As per J.D. Lewandowski, “the concept of social capital refers to the networks of social trust and social connections that serve to enable individual and collective actions in a given social structure or society.” Social exclusion is often a cause of poverty, conflict and insecurity. Improving social inclusion increases one’s well-being, mentally as well as economically.

The Internet has enabled a way of social interaction and connections which facilitate the kinds of action that “make democracy work” (Robert Putnam). It enables freedom of movement up and down the socio-economic and cultural ladder through social participation and human development. It offers economic opportunities and access to public and social services.

On the Internet, everyone can be anyone, and social division becomes a non-issue (though actually new social divisions are constantly being created, on a different level – are you on MySpace or Facebook?). In fact, “on the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog” (Peter Steiner’s cartoon). Another joke goes “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach him to use the Internet and he won’t bother you for weeks.” But that man might rise up to be the next Internet millionaire. Access to the Internet is an instrumental right for the improvement of people’s capability. Missing out restrains personal growth. That’s also why gouvernments provide libraries, and Internet access at libraries. It gives people access to knowledge, but libraries are a less than ideal environment for social interaction. Bringing the Internet closer to the community, closer to home, empowers people to take control of their own social network (online and offline). That’s where Free Sydney Wireless (Free Australia Wireless) fits in. By providing free Internet access, through a shared connection, we try to bridge the social divide in our own community, closest to us. This hardly costs us anything extra, as we already pay for Internet access. This is our small contribution to tackle social poverty.

The growth of social networking and user generated content reflects the deep rooted need of people for self expression, social interaction and peer validation. People sharing without personal financial gain. As they do, others do. Or so we hope anyway.
What are you waiting for, why not get involved?