Last week my Comcast cable stopped working on certain channels. As I was trying to figure out what worked and what didn't, I recalled a brief conversation with someone in a Comcast storefront about some sort of "digital conversion" (not the federally mandated one, as Comcast wants us to believe).
Luckily, that same person (one of the only two helpful people I've dealt with at Comcast, ever) had given me two items called "Digital Adapters" that were to be used to connect the TV(s) that had no box (cable straight from the wall) so that they could continue to receive all the channels (at least the ones I pay for).
I'm not all that thrilled about now having more boxes hanging around my TV sets, nor am I happy that I can't just use the cable feed from the wall in a way that I choose (and there are issues with the new remotes also). But as I searched for yet another open outlet to plug in yet another device (oddly, the Comcast-supplied plug won't fit into the plug in the back of the one Comcast cable box I do have), this thought occurred to me:
These things (I have two) use electricity. My electric bill will go up. So will my carbon footprint.
Comcast tells me that these little boxes are mandatory (unless I want to pay for a full cable box - no thanks). So I have no choice. They also told me they are free. But they're not. Comcast doesn't charge me for them.
But I will be paying PG&E for the electricity they use. And they will be the cause of more carbon emissions.
I know they probably use very little power (I asked @comcastcares exactly how much, and 6 days and 2 repeated requests later have yet to receive a response - update: this morning the Comcast twitter team responded and promised to try to find info on Monday), but they use power. And I have two. So do most of my neighbors.
I wonder - if you added up all the tiny bits of carbon emissions created by these boxes all across all of Comcast's customers, how big exactly is the mandatory Comcast Carbon Tax?
I'm sure Comcast won't tell us.