Nokia are, theoretically, doing their bit for the environment with the release of we😮ffset, a Carbon footprint calculator, along with a facility to donate an appropriate amount to projects that aim to balance your footprint out. It's a worthy release, although (over on my personal blog) I can't help think it's way too little way too late in the grand scheme of things...
Read on in the full article.
I know this is often used as an excuse for inaction, but it really is difficult to know who to believe and what to do.
There seems to be a general consensus that global warming is a serious threat and man-made, but beyond that there's no single consensus on fighting it.
Lots of ideas have been suggested, but most of them seem to depend on convincing people to do stuff they don't want to do, and no one wants to feel like they're giving stuff up when others aren't.
This is just an (albeit a good one) app for a phone...are you ranting that this hasn't appeared sooner?
In terms of 'too little, too late', it looks a very big emphasis on environmental policy at Nokia, judging by the other info available from the link. And it re-inforces some of the points you make regarding travel etc.
It actually looks like a corporate gorilla like Nokia does far more than most governments can be bothered with at the moment...
And therein lies the problem - if you want environmental policy to work you have to enforce it and make swift and hard decisions about what the short term and long term solutions are. Only governments can put the responsibilities and penalties regarding climate change upon the populous to make a real difference. People are stubborn (and not enough people care in the real world...and here, judging by the number of comments here compared to other articles).
You can see it happening ever so slowly... people adopting green policies. It'll happen quicker when it really starts impacting on peoples everyday lives (even though it's impacting plenty enough already). It might well be too little too late by then as usual you have to end up on the brink to get everyone to try and pull it all back. Even when your own planet's at stake it would seem!
Still though, if Nokia stuck a carbon footprint calculator in the million phones they produce everyday that could well make a hell of a difference over a few years/ a decade or two if people used it...
Maybe other .sis compatible phones and manufacturers could do too?