Not to go against Elvis Costello, but it turns out that digital music, not radio, is a sound salvation, at least when it comes to fighting climate change.

A new study conducted by researchers from Carnegie Mellon University, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Stanford University confirms what we already assumed:  downloading music cuts energy consumption and CO2 emissions compared to shopping at your local record store.  Digitizing wins again.

The study found that buying digital music results in a 40 to 80 percent reduction in energy use and carbon emissions compared to distributing CDs, and that factors in the energy used to download the files over the Internet.  The study compared four different ways of obtaining and listening to music, listed from most energy intensive to the least:  buying a CD in-person at a record store, buying a CD online, downloading an album and then burning it to a CD (both with and without a jewel case) and downloading an album and listening to it digitally.

There were some situations that blurred the lines.  If you walked to the music store instead of driving, that would equal the energy and emissions of downloading and then burning an album to disc, meaning the driving to the store is the worst part of buying music in person.  Also, if the album size is 260 MB (compared to the standard 60 to 100 MB) or more, then that would equal the energy and emissions of buying a CD online because of the extra energy needed to download it.

So, the moral of the story is:  download your music and keep it on your computer or iPod.  Luckily, that's what most of us are already doing.

via Earth2Tech

Lots of people leave their PCs on overnight. Often, this is for no good reason whatsoever, it’s just out of laziness. But sometimes it’s a conscious decision: if you want your computer to continue receiving updates, or transmit/receive information of any kind during the wee hours of the night, you need to leave it on. But even the lowest power settings generally burn more power than you need to do that minimal amount of computing.

Now, those people can use a system called Somniloquy. Although this device may be hard to spell, it does offer a cool service. Most computers have four levels of power consumption – regular use, standby, sleep/hibernate mode and completely shut down. A lot of people, including myself, prefer to hibernate their PCs rather than shut them off, because it allows them to start up again more quickly. With Somniloquy, you can hibernate your PC and still have it communicate with other PCs. Check out more details on Phys.org.

As for those who are just leaving their computers on out of sheer laziness - they do not deserve a cool new Somniloquy. They should just turn off your computers.

Via Treehugger
Image via System Surgeon