Do The Green Thing: January's Action: Take the stairs

Do January’s Green Thing. Take the stairs.

Labour-saving machines save us labour, that’s the point. They transport us from the ground floor to the fifth floor. They take us from A to B. They wash and dry and cook and clean for us.

But these machines use energy which produces CO2. It would help if we could use them less or use them more efficiently.

Take lifts. Or rather don’t. If you work on the 25th floor of a skyscraper, fair enough. But lifts are like vertical taxis - you wouldn’t hail a cab to go 100 feet down the road so why summon one to take you a few floors up?

So use less machine power and more of your own steam power. And if you take the stairs or find a way to resist other labour-saving machines, please come back and click DONE IT so we can count how much CO2 we’ve all saved.

Click when you've done it so Green Thing can count it. More >>

Specially created for January’s Green Thing ...

Touching The Stairs, the video

Stair-climbers James, Jo and Pete risk their lives by trying to reach the third floor. It’s a story of guts and sacrifice; a story of genuine heroes who don’t know the meaning of the word ‘lift’ - or do they?

Heroes Take The Stairs, the podcast

Spanning 65 millennia and including the true story of the lift that had a nervous breakdown and a behind-the-scenes peek at Starsky and Hutch, this brilliant podcast tells a comprehensive history of stair heroism and lift zeroism.

Heroes Take The Stairs, the v. short song

Green Thing pal Justin Hawkins takes everything this month’s Green Thing is about – self-reliance, endeavour, courage, heroism, selflessness - and translates it all into a 12 second rock song. That’s energy efficiency for you.

Stairway To Kilimanjaro, the challenge

Kilimanjaro is 19,340 feet high and the average stair is 7.5 inches high so climbing Kilimanjaro is like climbing 30,944 stairs. Can the Green Thing community climb enough stairs to get the Green Thing to the summit?

Lifts Are Not F.A.B., the video

If you’re paranoid about lifts, you’re right to be. If this anti-lift video doesn’t convince you take the stairs then almost nothing will. Expect terrible devastation and even worse puppetry.

I'm still not sure tell me why I should do it

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What others have said...

Feb's Green Thing arrives tomorrow morning (if the gods are smiling). By way of partial explanation the Green Thing team now has a baby it didn't have before. Yaaaay. More news on that when James S. returns from paternity!

Green_thing_48_micro andyh at 20:15 on 06/02/08

This is awesome !

P_profileblank_25 tokkyuu at 07:18 on 06/02/08

|| minie788 said: What about February's green thing????????????????? || Yeah, where is it??

Wombat_thumb_micro wombatz at 21:53 on 05/02/08

Feb's Green Thing is coming on Tuesday. We weren't quite ready on Friday 1 and our email partner Blue Barracuda can't send on the weekend, understandably (also weekend emails don't get opened so much). Monday emails get a bit lost as everyone gets back into work, so we'll send it out on Tue (hopefully morning).

Green_thing_48_micro andyh at 12:51 on 03/02/08

What about February's green thing?????????????????

Photo_96_micro minie788 at 10:55 on 03/02/08