The time is 1.22am, Sunday morning, I can’t sleep. I have too many thoughts going through my head. One of them is this, a way to get something for free. My wife and I really think about our environment and the future we are creating for our kids. We struggle with the conflict of having a certain level of greenness (is that a word?? must be, spell check didn’t have a problem with it) and living with a certain degree of comfort. Lets face it, it is me who is the big consumer. I buy all the toys, need the latest gadgets and equipment etc. In the past couple of years we have been trying to reduce our power consumption at home and have achieved a pretty good level of saving that hasn’t been hard or meant that we miss out on anything. What amazes me is no one else we know tries these same simple things.

“TURN OFF YOUR LIGHTS, STAND BY POWER, TV’s, COMPUTERS ETC, it isn’t that hard. People in our street have every frigg’n light wired to their house on every night, inside lights, outside lights, garden lights. WHY???? It should be part of our everyday living now, like wearing a bike helmet, not shooting an Elephant or taking no more than a dozen crabs. Why are we such a dumb bunch of lazy useless organisms that are hell bent on destroying the thing that keeps us alive. I feel it is my duty to try to make people aware and make people care for our kids very existence. Heavy sh1t I know but do we really care??

It is in our nature to be lazy, to think only of ourselves, to try and survive longer than the next bloke. To have the most money, the biggest house and god forbid the best camera and lenses. We will be doomed if we don’t change our ways now. So what I hope everyone reading this will do is get up off your computer chair and turn those bloody lights off, turn on your washing machine at 10pm, put the dishwasher on at the same time, turn off the tv and DVD player at the wall. Walk or ride your bike to the shops, recycle, have a compost bin and all those other things that aren’t hard to do. I challenge you to change your habits.

We only use an average of 9 units of electricity per day in our house and we forgo nothing. I would like to hear how many of you do the same. Wouldn’t it be great if our heros could be people that do something good for the planet like greenpeace, wwf and individuals like Steve Irwin. I guess they aren’t as cool to worship as Paris Hilton, Tom Cruise, and other disgusting roll models for our generation.

Now here is the cool part. You want that new lens??? of course you do. Can’t afford it?? of course you can’t. Why not?? because your probably paying too much on your electricity bill. TURN YOUR LIGHTS OFF, ETC, ETC, ETC. In a year you would have paid that sucker off in the savings you make. Thats it!!! Free lenses for everyone. I should have been an accountant! When you have finished making the changes necessary to never have to pay for camera gear again then have a look at how large multinational companies are F#~king up our world and our lives for the good of their shareholders. That will be the topic of my next sleepless night. There is so much we need to do to fix this stinking situation. It has to start at a grass roots level. Once you have made the changes, tell all your friends the secret of getting free stuff, and see if they care enough to do their bit for the planet. If they are still dragging their heels, make them feel bad about how they, by there actions, are stuffing up the future for you. And I don’t subscribe to the bullshit line, China is making more pollution that everyone so what chance do we have, we still per head of population pollute more than just about anyone else on the planet, how does that make you feel?

Phew, got that off my chest! Now I can go to sleep.