Eco-Friendly Camping Gizmos

A great way to minimize your air miles is to enjoy your countryside and go camping. Camping is hugely popular, and it's a great way to appreciate nature, have a fun holiday and spend time with your family. To ensure your camping trip is as green as possible, here are a collection of eco-friendly camping gadgets to peruse.

If you're away from home, you still need to stay clean, so how about an eco-friendly solar shower? You fill up the bag with up cold water, and then the sun's rays will heat up the water thanks to the black colouring of the bag. No fossil fuels or electricity is needed! The bag itself is also eco-friendly, because it contains no harmful chemicals.

When walking at night, it's pretty annoying to try and hold a flashlight as well as read a map. Even if you're not walking and you're just reading in your tend, holding a book and a torch at the same time is pretty hard work. Thankfully, the 2C Solar-Powered Baseball Cap allows you to have hands-free light, but without the need for batteries. You just leave the cap in the sun during the day to charge up. Although the cap looks gimmicky, I've got one myself and it works a treat!

If you like to listen to the radio, you can do a little off-grid listening with the Hand Powered 2-way and AM/FM/NOAA Radio.  The radio can actually be used for 2-way communication, which is perfect if your kids are prone to getting lost. No need to worry about batteries because you can get a lot of talk time for just a few minutes cranking of the handle. When you just want to listen to music rather than lost family members, just flick over to the FM radio! You can use batteries if you want, but it is designed to run completely by hand-power too!

This is a guest article by Dan Harrison who writes about eco-friendly gadgets for EnviroGadget.com. You can read about more eco-friendly camping gadgets and other green gizmos at EnviroGadget.com.

Technology: Addiction or Saviour?

I would like to share a recent personal experience involving my 23 year old step-son.  Please bear with me as it will tie into the theme of this blog, I promise (I hope).  My step-son is (or should say was) still living at home, not paying rent, not going to school and working only part time.  Apparently having no drive, no career aspirations and addicted to video games, I realized I had no choice but to kick him out of the house.

Not being the confrontational type, I found it to be a difficult situation.  Thus he managed to last a full 5 years living at home beyond the norm in Canada, the age of 18 being the age kids are normally kicked out of the house if not attending school.  In my step-son's case he had an excuse, he was an immigrant who had to learn English.  However after 6 years of life in Canada he was still learning the language and unable to support himself.

Why am I telling you all of this?  Well, you see my step-son has a problem.  He is addicted to video games.  He is an addict because it has impaired his ability to function in life.  Most often, addicts don't recognize they have a problem until they hit absolute rock bottom.  In his case, maybe living in a shelter will bring him to his senses.  I won't know, I don't take his phone calls.

But is it really just my step-son who has a problem?  Let's think about this.  Am I not addicted to technology?  I drive my car everywhere.  I watch my 42" plasma display TV every night.  I surf the web using my 3GHz pentium with 24" widescreen display.  But I NEED these items.  I really do.  I wouldn't be able to function without them.  And so do the billions of other people who have computers, cars, TVs, iPODs, ...   We all need technology.  

But do we really need technology or do we want technology?

You see I am applying a double standard.  My step-son is addicted to video games so I took action.  I am addicted to technology but I am complacent.  I have turned a blind eye to my own addiction.  The truth is that I don't need technology and in fact technology may very well be destroying our planet.   So yes,  we (you and me) have a problem.  We are addicted to technology.  

If we are addicted then there must be a choice.   Well yes there is.  I used to live in Southern Ontario, home of thousands of old-order mennonites.  They essentially rejected technology, use horse and buggy to get around, where black clothes only...

Now if the 6 billion people on this planet consciously agree to give up technology and live like mennonites then we would be a long way to solving our environmental problems.  But this is unrealistic of course.

So the question becomes:  can technology itself rescue us from our technology addiction? 

We have a race against time.  If we can prevent the destruction of our planet by use of technology then it is no longer a problem and hence not an addiction.  (I think).