According to a New York Times blog post, the Natural Resources Defense Council has released a study revealing that video game consoles consume an estimated 16 billion kilowatt hours per year, which is roughly equal to the annual electricity use of the city of San Diego.

Sony’s PlayStation 3 came out as the Hummer of all the consoles reviewed, requiring 150 watts while in use. According to the Annual MediaWise 11th Annual Video Game Report Card (2006) an average of 22% of American kids spend two or more hours a day playing video games. If you consider that a flatscreen television sucks around 150 watts as well, that’s 300 watts for every hour of gameplay - equivalent to blasting a pair of 10-inch subwoofers or the amount of energy created by this windmill.

According to the NYT:

In terms of overall energy use for the best-selling consoles — whether regularly turned off or not — the report describes Nintendo’s Wii, which draws 16 watts of power when in use, as a “juice sipper.” Microsoft’s Xbox 360, drawing 119 watts while active, sits in the middle. Sony’s PlayStation 3 was rated as the power hog, at 150 watts while in use.

The real problem, though, is not so much the consoles’ use of energy as it is the way that energy is managed. According to the Guinness World Records Gamer’s Edition, the world record for fastest completion of the video game Super Mario Bros IV (aka Super Mario World) is 10min 54sec. But most people can’t beat a game that fast. It takes them days, weeks, and even months of focused gaming before they can finish and (particularly if there is no save function) they often pause their game and leave the console on. In addition, none of the video game consoles reviewed had a viable hibernation energy-saving mode like Macs and PCs.

The study’s lead researcher says he hopes the findings will encourage game console manufacturers to build completely seamless power savings features into their products, including the save-game feature

[Via: New York Times]

Every issue we get more and more amazing photos. This was by far the hardest decision we’ve had to make yet.

Congratulations to our winners, Christy Chaloux of Portland, OR and Peter Carey of Langley, WA.

Want to win some sweet Marmot swag? We’re “wending” again for the winter contest, so check out the submission guidelines on www.wendmag.com/marmot and send us a photo!

Peter Carey and his wife Kim hiking on the trail to Gokyo in the Khumbu  region of Nepal.
“At this point I had a fever and cough, but for some reason a ton of energy at 4683 meters,” wrote Peter in his email.  He wins one of Marmot’s top-selling down jackets, the Zeus.

Photographer Christy Chaloux shot this photo of her friend Stacy Thomas snowboarding next to Highway 395 “somewhere between Mammoth and Tahoe.”  She wins the women’s cozy Marmot down jacket, the Venus.

Need another reason not to do cocaine?

According to a report in the Guardian, four square metres of rainforest are destroyed for every gram of cocaine snorted in the UK alone.

Francisco Santos Calderón, the vice-president of Colombia, recognizes the popularity of the green movement in Britain and is appealing to eco-conscious partiers there to combat deforestation by asking them to stop using cocaine.

Calderón claims that 300,000 hectares of rainforest are destroyed each year in Colombia to clear land for coca plant cultivation.

According to the Guardian, he told the Belfast conference:

“If you snort a gram of cocaine, you are destroying 4m square of rainforest and that rainforest is not just Colombian - it belongs to all of us who live on this planet, so we should all be worried about it. Not only that, the money that you use to buy the cocaine goes into the hands of Farc, of illegal groups that plant mines, that kidnap, that kill, that use terrorism to protect their business.”

It looks like Lindsay Lohann is responsible for global warming after all…

[Via: Guardian]

This amazing photo was submitted for our Marmot contest by Peter Carey. Peter, his wife, and their guide Matt took part in a 76 mile, 19 day trek in the region. An epic photo to say the least, which is just why he scored himself a Marmot jacket. Congrats Peter! Enter your own photo in our next Marmot contest by clicking here.

Do you want to be featured on Friday Photo? Check out Wend’s Flickr pool and submit your own shot with an accompanying description… you just might be up here next Friday. Even better, get on our mailing list and get FP sent directly to your inbox. Subscribe now!

Sometimes it feels like all we do is report on all the bad stuff happening to the environment. It’s therefore an understatement to say that we get very excited when things go well for the earth we live on, which is why we’re proud to announce this exciting news from the Sierra Club:

The Environmental Appeals Board of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ruled on November 13, 2008 that the EPA had “no valid reason for refusing to require that best available control technology be used to limit carbon dioxide emissions from a coal-fired power plant proposed in Utah.” The Sierra Club had gone before the Environmental Appeals Board in May to request that the air permit issued by the EPA for the Deseret Power Electric Cooperative’s proposed waste coal-fired plant be overturned because it didn’t require controls on carbon dioxide emissions.

Basically, the Sierra Club successfully stopped about 3.37 million tons of carbon dioxide that would have been released by the proposed plant into the atmosphere each year! This is a big step in the path towards a clean energy economy. In part, the decision comes on account of the fact that in a 2007 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that recognizes carbon dioxide as a pollutant under the federal Clean Air Act. That means that carbon dioxide emissions are therefore subject to regulation by the EPA. Go environment!

The lights are low. The romance is high. Barry White bumps seductive from the record player beside your bed,  causing the sheets to quiver with each rattling bass note. You’re not too drunk to take off your pants, but drunk enough to slide them down slowly - with style. You do a little dance to kick yourself free and watch as they land perfectly on your dresser - just like you’d practiced. Everything is perfect. You sip from a glass of champaigne with one hand while pulling your socks off with the other. “It’s time,” you say. Then — imagine the horror — your partner’s eyes come to a jarring stop just level with your bright blue conventional cotton underoos! The record scratches to a halt. The sheets recoil in shame. “How could you?” your partner cries, offended. “Cotton production destroys the planet. I think I should be leaving now.”

Eco-undies awareness has become common in bedrooms across America. Fortunately, Icebreaker has designed a line of men’s and women’s underwear that is both sexy and sustainable so that nothing can stand between you and making sweet, environmentally-friendly love.

According to the companies’ website, the garments are made from sustainably-produced pure merino wool sourced from the Southern Alps of New Zealand.

Check out Icebreaker’s website to read more about their BEAST and NATURE lines of sexy, sustainable underwear.

It’s that time of year again. No, not when Sasquatch comes out of the woods to catch up on his reading. The time of year when you give cool things to friends, family, significant others and even the occasional Bigfoot on your list. And what better way to say “Happy Holidays” than by signing someone up for a Wend subscription?

But here at Wend we know that you probably want to get the great magazine of adventure travel and activism in your own mailbox too, so we’ve set up a special Holiday Offer: when you buy one subscription, you get the second half off! That means you can hook up a friend with a year’s (or two) worth of Wend and get your own subscription, all for what amounts to just a little more than pocket change.

Trust us, this is the one gift you don’t want to be without this season. It’s smart, it’s green, and even Sasquatch is doing it. Take advantage of our Holiday Subscription Offer now! When gray and rainy March comes around and you need some travel inspiration, you’ll be glad you did.

photo courtesy of Gregg and Deia. This was the their photo taken at Terra Del Fuego upon finishing

Congrats to Gregg Treinish and Deia Schlosberg who penned the story “Across The Andes” which appears as the cover story in our current issue. Part two of that story will appear in our winter issue, hitting the stands next week. I started working with Gregg and Deia last winter while they were still on trail, and was amazed by them. Such great people and such an epic journey. We at Wend are very happy for them, and happy too that we can always beat the big guys to the real stories in the outdoor world. I can also claim that I’m the only editor they’ve worked with that they’ve hugged. Check back next week for a Wend produced podcast where the authors read their story aloud, available for free from Wend.

When we can visualize something, it’s a lot easier to understand it, and such is the case with the human impact on the environment. Pictures of diminishing glaciers and polluted cities have come to show us that our footprints are more than a mere word; our actions are severely affecting the world that we live in. But knowing that there is a problem is part of solving it, which is why we’re excited to hear about GHG Photos, a coalition of science, environmental, nature and documentary photographers who have spent the last few years focused on the emissions and effects of greenhouse gases. In fact, that’s exactly what GHG stands for: Greenhouse Gases. The group believes that photography has a significant role in the discussion regarding climate change, and after looking through some of the amazing photography, it’s easy to understand why.

Check out GHG Photo and the seven photographers at their website.

Google just launched their LIFE photo archive, where this classic image came from. Seriously, who comes up with ideas like this?

Thanks cyclelicious!