my name is mwd

A week or so ago I wrote a piece about how, although a very good idea and very interesting in itself, the Realtime Carbon website didn’t give the obvious metric it seemed to claim for when to turn things on and off.

David Mackay, the author of the well put together book Without Hot Air, has also commented on Realtime Carbon – essentially also saying that as a method of knowing when to turn things on and off it’s not that useful.

I hate to sound like I’m being negative the Realtime Carbon guys – they’ve done some fantastic work and it’s a really useful resource. However, I just worry that it overly simplifies what’s a complex problem and can lead people who don’t understand that point to make poor decisions. Perhaps it just needs small print like “information only useful as part of a balanced carbon controlled diet…” or such :)