You use Twitter.
You like living green.
So why not use your twitter account to live greener?
What is Twitter?
If you’re asking that question, I’d like to invite you to come out of the cave you apparently live in and then go read some posts at TwiTip (and maybe a few from the “getting started” section).
Whether you just recently signed up for Twitter or have used Twitter since the early days (like me), these 3 ideas are really gonna help you use your Twitter account to live greener… or just win you some cool points at the very least.
3 Cool Ways Twitter Can Help You Live Greener
- Turn Your Lights On and Off… Using Twitter!
Uh, yeah, I’m gonna guess there’s no further explanation needed.
Let us all join in a chorus of “Holy crap! that was cool!”
Unfortunately there is one not-so-green element to this idea: you’d have to leave a computer turned on ALL the time for this to work!
If you like this idea and have a fair amount of geekness, check out MisterHouse. This free platform will allow you to automate lots of things — like lights — through AIM or GoogleTalk!
- Make Your Plants Tweet You When They Need Water
…And thank you when they get it.
The crew at Botanicalls made their plant, Pothos, tweet when he needed water. At the time of this writing, his most recent tweets are:
- “URGENT! Water me!”
- “Water me please”
- “Thank you for watering me”
- “Current Moisture: 83%”
That’s pretty cool.
You can buy the Botanicalls kit for $99.
- Hack a Kill-a-Watt Gadget to Tweet Your Energy Use
I saw this great hack at TreeHugger, but its origin is also MAKE Magazine.
The schematics of this Tweet-a-Watt power monitor project aren’t yet released since MAKE is entering this design into the Greener Gadgets design competition.
I’ll be at Greener Gadgets next month, so you can bet I’ll post plenty of pics, commentary, and firsthand video of this gadget and others while I’m there!
For now, MAKE gives a brief explanation of how it works:
“Here’s how it works, the modified Kill-a-Watt uses a “super-cap” to slowly recharge itself, once there is enough power it turns on the Xbee wireless module which transmits the data to a nearby computer (or internet connected microcontroller, like an Arduino) once the power usage for the day is recorded it uses a predefined Twitter account (it can be your own) to publish your daily KWH consumption for the day, multiple units can be used for an entire household.”
I can’t wait to see the schematics released after next month.
How About You?
Are there any ways you’ve found to use Twitter to help you live greener and more eco-friendly?
I think every little step toward living green is an awesome one… but eco-snobbery sucks! My goal is to help newbies learn the most important steps toward living green — individually and collectively. Personally, I strive to have as little impact as possible on Planet Earth while I'm here.
