The Fever Dream of a Guilt-Ridden Gadget Reporter

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Every year the world's largest tech show takes place in Las Vegas at about this time, where new gadgets and gizmos are displayed in ever-brighter booths, with flashier video panels and louder and louder music. Celebrities come to sell whatever gadget they've been paid to promote. And the world's media eats it up.

As one of the most-read gadget blogs, Gizmodo sends people to the event every year. This year, Mat Honan posted a stream-of-thought diatribe of the whole event.

And it is fantastic:

There is a hole in my heart dug deep by advertising and envy and a desire to see a thing that is new and different and beautiful. A place within me that is empty, and that I want to fill up. The hole makes me think electronics can help. And of course, they can.

They make the world easier and more enjoyable. They boost productivity and provide entertainment and information and sometimes even status. At least for a while. At least until they are obsolete. At least until they are garbage.

Electronics are our talismans that ward off the spiritual vacuum of modernity; gilt in Gorilla Glass and cadmium. And in them we find entertainment in lieu of happiness, and exchanges in lieu of actual connections.

Of course I'm not advocating that we move back to the stone age. But like many I've fallen into the trap of believing that technology can solve the emptiness that the modern sometimes delivers. Having just returned from Antarctica (more on that later!), I have a renewed view of the world and the importance of connections.

So enjoy your tech gadgets, one and all. But don't forget that true fulfillment usually lies elsewhere.

Wine store rewards recyclers with new bottles of wine

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Help the UN climate negotiations by changing the day it begins

Every single year the UN Climate Conference starts at the same time: at the end of November. Until the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Conference, most people didn't even know that an annual climate meeting existed. Today it seems to be the only public event when climate change is spoken of seriously.

But as the result of the Durban talks show, the increased public awareness of this important annual meeting isn't igniting enough political urgency for an outcome that will reduce humanity's carbon footprint. So here's small suggestion that might help: Change the starting date of the annual UN Climate Conference.

The current timing of the annual event – late November to early December – might be the worst possible time of year to have a major climate change meeting. It's the time of year when the average person is thinking the least about climate change. The conference starts right around American Thanksgiving – which I'm told is a very big deal – and ends well into the Christmas season. On the same weekend the Durban talks began, headlines across the Americas were talking about shoppers trampled to death on Black Friday. What a sad indication of the media's priorities.

If the climate conference were moved closer to the summer – say September – it will be more likely that nations would be meeting at the same time politicians are fielding phone calls from constituents suffering from droughts, wildfires and storms. Hurricane Katrina, Russian wildfires, Somolian famines – Most of the catastrophes that people associate with global warming occur during the Northern Hemisphere's summer. So what is the logic of having a world climate change meeting start when those nations are entering their coldest season? Instead, why don't we time the conference so that climate change is more likely to be top of mind?

Changing the date of the conference might help focus politicians on the problem. And if it doesn't, I doubt it will make the climate negotiations any worse off.