Be a Bloomer

July 13, 2008 4:19 AM

Want to know what actions can have the biggest impact on your carbon emissions? Bloom helps you choose actions tailored to your home and lifestyle, then lets you compare them by how much CO2 they save and how cheap they are. With background guides for recycling, organic foods, energy ratings, and emissions. From the BBC.
posted by netbros (15 comments total)

Excellent site, very engaging. They should do a version of this for governmental decision-making.

Wanna build a new motorway or expand an airport? Visit GovBloom to be told why you shouldn't.
posted by imperium at 4:26 AM on July 13, 2008

I'd love to feel good about this site but somehow adding a flash interface to articles already on the BBC website just makes it harder for the web to work efficiently.
posted by srboisvert at 6:25 AM on July 13, 2008

After my annual Canada Day backyard tire fire, it says that I'm going to have to sit very still and eat recycled soup for the next 27 years. I WOULD DO IT ALL AGAIN.
posted by jimmythefish at 8:40 AM on July 13, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

So I get points for breastfeeding a baby, but they make no mention of how much better for the planet it is if I just don't have the little bugger in the first place.
posted by tula at 9:38 AM on July 13, 2008 [3 favorites has favorites]

Though I am quite skeptical of the "green consumerism" trend, I rather like this site. It manages to be practical, informative, and balanced, without getting preachy or hawking products. Also, it's whimsical art and layout is quite pleasant, and vaguely reminiscent of early 90s sci-fi video game interfaces.
posted by Jon_Evil at 10:44 AM on July 13, 2008

Another example of a site that doesn't remember that some of us (I'm guessing the vast majority of us) out here in the real world are on shared bandwidth and 7-yr-old systems. I waited 4 endless minutes through all the adorable flash bullhockey and finally gave up. I guess I'll have to just trust the comments to find out whether I should have waited or not. Meantime, I think I'll go pick my home-grown, fertilizer-free vegetables and take them via public trans to my nursed-as-an-infant son's unairconditioned apartment so his vegetarian roommate can make a nice homecooked meal. I'll bring in my line-drying laundry when I get back.
posted by nax at 10:55 AM on July 13, 2008

At the top left there are links to both HTML and text-only versions of the site.
posted by jimmythefish at 11:28 AM on July 13, 2008

Wow, nax, that's awesome. And line drying your laundry definitely makes up for all the carbon emissions, burnt fossil fuels, etc from your frequent trips to Dayton, Cleveland (only two weeks later!), San Jose and San Francisco, etc.

Don't get me wrong; I'm taking a vacation in a couple months myself, but I'm not feeling all self righteous about myself either.
posted by Justinian at 12:05 PM on July 13, 2008

I've made the decision that this is our one chance to achieve God-like levels of technology using the plentiful fossil fuels to generate enough industrial, scientific and human capacity to make it past meaningful resource scarcity. Whether we have fusion power, solar panels in North Africa, or we're all running on a big Google server farm instead of walking around, this is our one shot. This is our chance to transcend our animal, Malthusian, heat-death-of-the-universe fate. The next intelligent species coming up won't have the available non-renewable natural resources, whether it's smart cockroaches or the humans that crawl back up to farming up from the 100,000 or so people left after this global civilisation goes completely horribly wrong in the great third millenium extinction event.

Yes, this position lets me go on foreign holidays, and it's undeniable self-serving. However, my other two options are to find God and hope for the end of the world, or become a serial killer who targets people with a large carbon footprint.

Hmmm, you know, I think I've just convinced myself to join an environmental group. Off to Google...
posted by alasdair at 12:23 PM on July 13, 2008

I pretty much do as much as I'm going to do -- I walk everywhere (use no vehicles, public or private), eat no meat, grow fruits and veggies, compost all compostables, use energy efficient lights everywhere, reuse shopping bags, dry all clothes on a clotheshorse, buy minimal clothing and use them until they're frayed, etc., etc. -- and still pages like this always tell me I have the carbon footprint of an entire Amazonian tribe.

I'm not going to strip to a loincloth, walk out into the woods, and chew larvae. It's the rest of civilization's turn to do something. All nations: reduce your damned birth rates to no higher than replacement levels, OK? You're all lovely, but we've got more than enough of just about everyone, thanks. And tourists: this year, try a damned bicycling & camping tour, one that starts and stops at your front door. It will do wonders for your physical and mental health, your figure, your sex life, your bank account, your regional economy, and your planet.
posted by pracowity at 1:02 PM on July 13, 2008

gosh, justinian. I don't know if you're being facetious or what (you just sound like sort of a jerk, but maybe that's just the unsubtlety of the medium), so sorry my "frequent" trips offended you. Of course, there is no way for you to know that until this year, the last time I managed to leave Chicago was 1996. Next time I'll make sure that my business (which took me to Dayton), my son (whose college graduation I selfishly attended near Cleveland "just two weeks later") and my daughter (who had the audacity to be performing in a national touring company in San Jose--they didn't consult with me before skipping Chicago), check with you before forcing such profligacy on me again. Now I gotta go get that laundry and then bike to the farmer's market.

And, just so you know, I *walked* to Dayton.

Unfortunately, none of this solves my bandwidth problem with annoying flash sites.
posted by nax at 1:15 PM on July 13, 2008

jimmythefish, thank you for pointing out a possible solution to my slow system.
posted by nax at 1:16 PM on July 13, 2008

We can all chill out about our personal habits once there's a proper combination of international contraction and convergence and tradable carbon quotas. Until then we'll have pointless "you take too many flights" debates.
posted by imperium at 1:22 PM on July 13, 2008

Says nothing about what I could do with my breathing! I'm a CO2 producing, O2 breaking machine killing the planet!
posted by Laotic at 2:55 PM on July 13, 2008

All nations: reduce your damned birth rates to no higher than replacement levels.

A. MEN. there are TOO. MANY. PEOPLE. VHEMT needs to bump up its marketing. I try to spread the word, but it falls on deaf ears & no one gets the connection.
posted by yoga at 4:59 AM on July 14, 2008