Image by Instead of buying movies and cds from teh shops with all their packaging, download them from the internet. It is generally cheaper, and you can still respect the copyright of artists if you buy them from legitimate sources.
Instead of buying movies and cds from teh shops with all their packaging, download them from the internet. It is generally cheaper, and you can still respect the copyright of artists if you buy them from legitimate sources.
In general the entertainment industry is incredibly energy intensive no matter how the content is delivered, particularly movies. It also tends to be quite exploitative. Unless you are really careful about your purchases every major label CD one purchases sends money out of your community, even if you live in LA, the profits are going to stock holders.
I now try to avoid paying for entertainment unless it is going directly into the artists hands. I no longer buy or rent CDs and movies. If necessary to happiness, try downloading directly from an artist's website rather than from itunes or some other corporate marketing machine. This is more supportive of the artist and is less energy intensive. Even better, make your own music and theatre with friends and neighbors or patronize local artists in live attendance thus supporting local economy.
I'm currently in the process of transferring all my CD's to hard drive to avoid shipping them to America when we move back. My entire collection now fits on one hard drive which weighs less than a 20th of the cd's it replaces. The content with the most emotional significance to me or that is irreplaceble will be backed up to another drive This will save me money and reduce the carbon impact of the move. The CD's themselves are going to friends, second hand shops, and charity.
I've been debating with a friend about the impact of only buying used goods. He maintains that by purchasing used goods you are providing funds for someone to purchase a new item, I believe this is particularly true of CD's which many seem to have a compunction to collect, I say that having suffered from this malady of media hoarding most of my life.
in September
Hi Robb.
If others, like me, think that you have no moral obligation to respect the money-making activities of major corporations, then there are heaps of ways of accessing material on the internet.
MP3 players are another compact way of moving music around.
As for making my own music, well, let's just say, paying a dollar for a song on iTunes is better than listening to me...
in September
I used to like having physical CD's, but I've already ended up making the switch to downloads just because you just find more interesting stuff on the internet Why bother supporting the big music companies spitting out the same old pop crap when you can support great independent music for cheap or free on sites like Amie Street?
Downloading movies, now, that's going to take some extra effort from me when our broadband quota fills up so fast...
in September
A million DVDs takes up far less than a single shipping container, the packaging takes more, but we're still talking about relatively small volumes compared to the huge amounts of waste that gets generated by making a movie.
By downloading the movie you're still supporting most of the waste.
You make a far better impression on the world by being vareful about what companies & movies you support.
Even downloading is not "green". According to Sun (http://www.celsias.com/org/sun-microsystems/) there are a billion people people participating online using 100 billion kWh or electricity.... or 100kWh per online person per year. That's quite a footprint.
in October
OK Charles, you're probably right in what you say, but two comments: First, shipping container has to be moved around the world and that takes energy - substantially more than downloading a movie.
Second, people are not going to stop watching movies or listening to music. So let's encourage them to access it in way that is more energy efficient.
I do agree that it is important to support and encourage companies, bands, etc that use less energy. Any suggestions on how we can do this?
last month
MaryJo W. 23° pledged to do this in 18 days
