Cool It Campaign

Last night my wife and I attended a school function that featured a guest speaker from Acterra. No matter what you think of global warming there is no arguing that we in the USA are responsible for the largest portion of carbon emissions. Interesting website cool-it.us has a carbon calculator. While I am not certain I understand how the air travel carbon is calculated it does give a starting point for households to start measuring and managing their carbon emissions.

So, the (definitely) half-baked product ideas:

1) A zillow.com like mashup for carbon emissions i.e. Google maps that blackens in each property on the map based on their carbon emissions- the more you emit the blacker your property is displayed (public shame).

2) A device that plugs into power outlets that measures electricity usage per appliance. The goal being to see in real-time how much power we are utilizing when we perform everyday tasks like use the toaster or microwave oven. The scale could be kilowatts or some other more tangible metric like pounds of carbon.