I love gadgets but the one thing that pisses me off more than most things is having to deal with the standby button!  Why does everything have one - my computer, dvd player, xbox 360 and sky box - thats just the start.  Apparently on a yearly basis in the UK this equates to:

 

Unfortunately sex is not the way to becoming carbon neutral but apparently sleeping is!  It is a fairly simple principle but if you are asleep then you don't have the television, computer, radio etc on.  Apparently, Damian take note ;-) if you sleep less than 5 hours then you are likely to consume 16 per cent more electricity, 9 per cent more Gas and consume and burn over 1.5g more fat in each 24 hours!  This is all compared to the people who sleep more than 9 hrs a day!

 

To be honest on this score i am guilty as charged, I definitely don't get to sleep till after 11 and wake up about 6.30.  So I probably get about 6 hrs sleep a night.  I'm not sure what the average sleep time is and there is no way in a million years i can sleep 9 hours a day and when you break it down the 5 and 9 hrs must be at the extreme to make the difference in energy consumption look so different.  When it comes down to it this sleeping theory is prety ropey as really what you should be doing is plaing more sport or getting outside, as long as you don't drive then you are saving a load of electricty by not being in the house. 

 

I could probably argue that Ipods are killing the planet due to there short battery life...  If everyone turned off there Ipod for one hour a day then how much electricty would be saved through having to charge them again!  Now that sounds like a new study, worthy of locking myself in a university lab trying to prove!

 

At the moment all I know is that i am a long way from being carbon neutral and the world cup is making things far far worse.