Ohhhh. Acid mine drainage. I thought you were talking about acid mine drainage.

@braak: My brother lost both eyes in the acid mines of Siluuria.

By the way, this post is utterly pointless for those of us who only seek to bring about the apocalypse. Just sayin'.

@zeppelined: Well I got those car bomb forensics jobs waiting for you if you need some apocalypse.

@zeppelined: Well, yes, but it's invaluable to those of us who plan on hanging around afterwards.

Though let me say, as someone who's read MAKE magazine a lot, knowing how someone else repurposed old forklift motors into an electric car is a lot different from being able to repurpose old forklift motors into an electric car.

Every day I shake my fist in anger that my high school made me go through the college prepatory program, instead of attending the Vo-Tech school.

Annalee must be starting small, and working her way up to "Rule Earth with an Iron Fist." Or maybe Zen and the Art of Bioroid Maintenence.

@braak: I'm guessing you probably don't even have access to forklift motors . . . but you can always turn your old computer into a DVR, or your old VCR into a cat feeder!

Oh, no. Getting the forklift motors wasn't much of a problem.

I can get all kinds of things.

VCR into a cat feeder. That was a classic one.

(Also, I turned an optical USB mouse into a heated optical USB mouse, does that count? Otherwise, I have a new project involving an etch-a-sketch, but I bought a new one for that, so I guess it doesn't count...)

@braak: Reeeeeally . . . well, have you perhaps gotten any silvery looking robot hands? Just, you know, so my pals at Cyberdyne can check them out?

One of the best things you can do is turn your lawn mower into a garden ornament by converting your lawn into vegetable and flower gardens or a natural area.

@Annalee Newitz: Can, and have. Well, just the one.

Unforunately for your friends, I've repurposed it into a fancy remote control for my dishwasher.

See, what I did was, I put it on the end of a stick. Like, a really long stick. And now, I can press the buttons on the dishwasher from across the room!

@braak: I hope you've been downloading memories from it though. Just like on Sarah Connor Chronicles.

@bjarmson: Turn your Mac into a fishtank!

@Annalee Newitz: I thought I had made it clear: actually using technology for purposes is not my long suit.

Have they found a use for dirty diapers? We were pretty eco-friendly before we had a kid.

Seriously though, water conservation should be up there too.

@bjarmson: This is a very good suggestion. You have to look at the actual footprint of your various activities, habits and belongings. Green roofs are also a good choice.

A HUGE amount of the world's energy is spent on housing and buildings. If you're a home-owner or the owner of commercial real estate, do everything in your power to get energy use to zero; then cover the rest with local energy (solar, geothermal, wind, etc.). Even locally burnt coal can be better than coal from a far off plant - it's still dirty, but at least you've saved the Earth from transmission losses.

Hybrid cars really aren't the answer. Until they have useful organic batteries the industrial processes involved in making the Prius' battery pack are ruinous. I think ultra-efficient clean diesel is the way to go for now.

Eat vegetables grown locally. The amount of energy wasted on factory farming is ridiculous, and local veggies usually have more minerals and vitamins anyway (they're picked later).

Unfortunately though, the bottom line is that living in Ecotopia today is mostly an exercise in futility. Our industrial base simply isn't set up to allow us to do this. We get clothes made from cotton that wipes out local ecosystems. We subsidize over-investment and under-utilization in Iowa corn, French cheese and Japanese rice. We're penny-wise and pound-foolish by burning coal rather than collecting solar to save 10 cents/watt.

I think #5 is the most important suggestion. Until we change the system, changing from within the system is really, really hard.

@Epaminondas: i think the eco friendly diapers would be to use cloth ones and wash them.

@Annalee Newitz: That will take care of the myriad hours I spend wasting my time making pointless comments online, save electricity, and maybe I can eventually eat the fish.

@tetracycloide: You would think, but we checked into a couple of services here and they still used a plastic insert.

@Annalee Newitz: VCR into a cat feeder?

I need this. Where are the instructions?

@Epaminondas: Uh..See..This is the one I hate - Don't YOU poop? Landfills will be there & diapers are only a minor portion of them...I dunno...
I think there are worse things. Like greed & scary people who kick pseudo-dog-robots over...

"Today: recycle all the waste materials you can."

This isn't always good for the environment. Many items made from recycled materials cost more than non-recycled-content items, and when they do, it's often because recycling them uses more energy/harsh, polluting chemicals than using fresh material.

I'm not against recycling per se, but it isn't automatically better.
-Kle.

Why would I follow instructions to live in harmony with something I want to subjugate?

The AI will destroy the human race, taking care of all of these problems. So on to Step 2!!

I saw an entire wall-sized print of that Mitch Epstein photograph at the SFMOMA. Absolutely incredible in person.

"This is gay ... this is really gay. Everyone back in the pile."

On the ecological front, I've done very well personally. Short of suicide--and grinding my corpse up for mulch--I can't think of much else I can do in as a deep urban apartment dweller in the post-industrial world.

Hmmm. Maybe I should start pushing landlords to start install wind turbines and photovoltaic cells?