I was going to reply to this in the Camping Equipment and all Clothing thread where it resides. But once I got going I decided that would be wrong so I offer my reply here instead. My ideas started and never stopped, so here goes.....

goodwoodweirdo shares info on this brilliant new stove.

The Biolite Stove

Yes, I like that a lot....... a very neat idea...... Thanks for sharing it.
But a BIG BUT......

You recharge your phone, ipod, GPS......
Using sticks of wood.......

BUT, WHERE do all the rare and precious metals and minerals come from that are needed to make your phone/ipod/GPS in the first place, and the twig-powered CHARGER? (Plus the bike's engine-management-computer and electronic ignition not to mention petroleum products so we won't mention them).
WHAT continent and WHICH countries?
WHAT happens to the people who are pushed off of their lands/out of their homes when the mining companies come?
WHAT happens to the LAND???
HOW MUCH do the local people earn who are "LUCKY" enough to WORK in the mines???

Is it REALLY better to use sticks of wood to recharge this stuff???? Yet more MINES are needed to make the charger - what DIFFERENCE does it make????
OR, better NOT to have all this stuff in the first place, like we didn't, not very long ago?????

I WISH I knew.....

I worry - is OVERLANDING, living in the BACKWOODS in a tent with all the latest electronic GIZMOS and HI-TECH equipment and personal transport, just ANOTHER manifestation of the rampant CONSUMERISM that seems, to me, to be destroying the planet where people live, some places faster than others????? (Yes, political corruption and greed, mainly in the west, makes that destruction even worse than need be but that's a whole other discussion).

I ask this as someone who worked a career in high-tech consumable products and services, did what little I could to make it accessible and affordable for everyone, and now look back to see the demands that have been created for more and yet more exotic materials that have to come out of someone's land. Not my land - yet. But those demands grow relentlessly at ever faster rates.

Where to now??

Here on the HUB I read of adventurers tackling the ever-changing situations of routes and access in central Africa. Unrest moving from area to area, politics in turmoil, changing the overlanding landscape all the time. Certain parts of Asia the same.
And yet, from the research I've done, most if not all the unrest in most of central Africa is caused by mining rights, appropriation of land by western interests, and the security of that land and those mines, to feed the very gizmos and services that us travellers carry around with us while crossing the continent.

Where to now??
To my Horlicks - I need some......

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TTR250 - London to Cape Town