The link is to The Consumption Conundrum: Driving the Destruction Abroad. This report is a must-read! It is short so you have no excuse. The report was published in environment 360, out of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. The authors (two Yale professors) accomplish what has become unusual in our day; they present the dilemma in a fair and impartial manner. Continue Reading
Category : Digital, Environmental Issues, Fossil Fuels
Category : Digital, Environmental Issues, Recycling
We have discussed “Paper vs Pixels” in a few previous posts, but not with any real concern. If the issue is simply which is more damaging to the environment – paper or pixels – the answer could be “neither”. That was my mindset. Pixels are no big deal. But maybe that was not an accurate position, or an appropriate attitude. Continue Reading
New methods of electronic communication require massive new energy supplies. Environmnetalists are beginning to suggest that there should be limits to digital growth. Not Greenpeace, however; they are not ready to take on Apple or Google. Greenpeace says it doesn’t matter how much new energy is required. If we just take out coal (which is the emphasis in this article), limit drilling for oil, put limits on the new natural gas technologies, and ignore the potential of nuclear power, somehow it will all work out. See Coal Fuels Much of the Internet Cloud.
Have you noticed that paper has become less objectionable to environmentalists lately. Are they are finally are starting to get it? One of the new villains is digital communication; the energy it consumes and the waste it leaves behind. It is fascinating though that Apple and Google et al escape the wrath of the community. That would not be good politics or fund raising tactics. The anger is instead, projected to the coal producers. You see, all this energy consumed by everything digital, is being produced by coal. Actually, the attached article is so negative on coal that we should have had someone from the other side give the clean-coal story, but we will do that at another time. See Is Digital Media Worse for the Environment Than Print? for the latest environmental trend.