Originally Posted by
thenomad
Now I know this will come off sounding snarky but I really do think its a relevant issue. You want to be energy independent for green reasons yet are willing to spend a lot of money on special devices to do it. There are resources mined, refined, processed and manufactured in order to make each of these gadgets. In essence, your carbon footprint grows larger in your technological solutoons to reduce your carbon footprint. Id equate it to a single person buying an electric car to be "environmental" to offset the impact of the other car. The greenest way to reduce impact is to use equipment already manufactured / reuse/recycle. ride vintage bikes, use vintage equipment as much as posible, use paper road maps, the same rechargeable batteries, perhaps one smart phone (older model that would have hit the landfill?) Or none at all. Bottle generators work, not great but it prevents more waste. That seems more green and "off the grid" to me.
Hey, if someone wants to be self-sufficient during a bike tour it makes perfect sense. If you own lights, cameras, phones, GPS unit, tablet or lap top...whatever, you want to be able to use these things during your trip without the inconvenience of having to find an electrical outlet. Hey, I don't own a tablet but if I did I would love to bring it on a tour as it would add to my enjoyment of my time off the bike.
To me, being "Green" really has nothing to do with it. All that carbon footprint stuff is a bunch of nonsense anyway because unless everyone on the planet is willing to give up every modern convenience manufactured with petroleum products ( almost everything is manufactured with petroleum products ) the planet is still going to hell in a hand-basket. A couple hundred years here or there isn't really going to make a big difference. Eventually we will run out of the natural resources needed to maintain modern infrastructure and when that happens no one will give a damn about "carbon footprints". All people will care about is where to get clean water and food. Everything else will be considered non-necessities. Yeah, I paint a bleak picture of the future. Sorry about that, I hate being the buzz killer. Wish I could be more hopeful but the events of past human history have a way of repeating themselves.