The downside of being an ardent gadget fan is that one tends to be responsible for a fair level of energy consumption - something that these days is starting to be frowned upon. Well - there's no need to give up the gadgets - but we can all be careful in how we use those gadgets in order to minimise the amount of power (and other resources) that we use.

The Energy Saving Week is an annual event hosted by the Energy Saving Trust. The idea is to encourage as many people as possible to cut their energy consumption by 20%. May sound like a lot, but it isn't - turning off unused light bulbs, using low-energy bulbs or simply turning down the thermostat by one degree - little things can make all the difference.

If you're interested (which let's face it you should be) then they have page where you can make your own pledge.

Don't forget though - global warming is only one of the ways in which we're damaging the environment and unfortunately many of the products aimed at reducing carbon emissions themselves have other signficant and potentially worse environmental impact - for example depleting valuable, non-replacable mineral resources. As with all things - applying a little commonsense can go a long way. Those compact flouresent bulbs you're going to have to buy soon take more energy to make, contain mercury and have to be disposed of in special recycling facilities (that take more power). Oh - and in my experience many of them last a lot less than the claimed 10 years!

As part of the Energy Saving Week - we have reviews of a couple of gadgets to help you do just that - be sure to come back and take a look!