3-year-olds see discarded cardboard and they see fortress walls.
20-somethings see cardboard as a floor and themselves as Ozone.
Really, really, really smart people see cardboard and they see everything. And anything.
A chair that becomes a sofa.
Or a conversation table.
Or an oven.
Wha- wha- wha- waaaiiiitttt ahhhh minute.
Isn’t cardboard flammable?
Nothing gets by you, does it?
Who needs flames when you have the Kyoto Box?
It is a $5 cooker that uses solar power and the greenhouse effect to boil and bake, specifically for use in rural Africa and ideal for every developing country.
You can fold it flat and pack it. It’s simple design means it can be made right now in every cardboard factory. Heck, if you had a cardboard box, straw or newspaper, foil, black paint and 10 minutes, you too can have your very own Kyoto Box. And it prevents two metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions per family.
Yes, it’s the awesomest thing since the platypus.
The Kyoto Box was recently named the winner of Financial Times’ Climate Change Challenge, which focused on lessening carbon emissions.

The cardboard oven beat out four other entries:
The Black Phantom – a machine that turns biomass (wood and other organic material and maybe even sewage!) into charcoal, a very stable form of carbon. Sooner or later, it’ll be used to fuel a time-traveling DeLorean.
Makers of The Black Phantom also hope to use the gases from the burning coal for energy.
Deflektors – Cheap, lightweight covers that replace hubcaps on wheels of semi-trucks. They are designed to reduce drag, thus improving fuel efficiency.
So you’re a lonely truck driver, slap on some rad Deflektors and stop at every biofuel gas station and – bam! – you’re still lonely but you’ll play a part in saving the world. Congrats!
Mootral– Did you know livestock farts are responsible for 20 percent of global warming? There’s a joke in there somewhere. Mootral is a natural supplement that fights stomach bacteria in the likes of cows and sheep to reduce the methane they discharge. Sounds like something I need after a California burrito.
Ceiling tiles– The most innovative name since The Dave Matthews Band, ceiling tiles work as an air-cooling system. It draws warm air out of a room by evaporating water stored in the tile and is designed to reduce energy use. It could also be used to replace air conditioning units.
You may not be really, really, really smart and invent the next big thing to save the world. But you can play a simple part just as those who came up with the inventions above.
It’s making something out of nothing.
Not everything past its use-by date is trash. It can be re-used or recycled as something else.
It’s the green theme — increasing the life of every-day objects and products, in turn, decreasing the demand of new ones. Because saving the world and preserving the earth isn’t just about saving power or water or recycling your open condom wrappers.

Save the world, save your green
So you have no need for a Kyoto box. And you don’t live in a developing country.
But you were born in the 80s and you just can’t help yourself, you have a thing for saving money, helping others and the platypus — God’s joke to the world.
Well, we don’t have enough room to discuss the hilarity of a semi-aquatic mammal that lays eggs. But we do have enough to tell you about betterworldbooks.com.
The site sells used and new books at a discounted price (and with free shipping!) with profits benefitting world literacy programs and initiatives.
So not only can you get rid of your old books, buy cheap ones, participate in the recycling of books while keeping them out of landfills and help the world become literate, but you may also have reserved a spot in heaven to enjoy the Big G’s sense of humor.

Odeen Domingo is writing a bi-weekly column on eco-friendly topics for HandsIn.org. He is a newspaper journalist and the editorial director of eeko studio, a green design and branding firm based in Phoenix, Ariz. (eekostudio.com; blog.eekostudio.com)

{photo: http://www.kyoto-energy.com}