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13. 06. 2007  14:26 | 01_Mobility_&_Mashup_Situations , 02_Project_Links_&_Ressources_4

Cyber carbon footprint

After the "Avatars comsume as much electricity as Brazilians", something about "Cyber warming: PCs produce same CO2 emissions as airlines" says a recent article in The Independent (UK).
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"(...). Ministers will this week embark on a campaign to curb "cyber-warming" from computers and information technology equipment that now does as much damage to the climate as aircraft emissions.

(...). The two initiatives will mark the biggest official attempt to address some of the environmental consequences of the extraordinarily rapid spread of IT into almost every aspect of daily life. Up to eight million new computers are sold in Britain every year, along with 1.8 million Wi-Fi terminals in the past 18 months.

A government-backed task force is to launch an attempt to reduce what it calls the "cyber carbon footprint" - which threatens to wreck attempts to hit targets for reducing emissions of carbon dioxide, the main cause of global warming - and to encourage the spread of "green" technology.

New research shows that computers generate an estimated 35 million tons of the gas each year - the equivalent of one million typical flights to and from the UK. And Gartner, the international information technology research company, estimates that globally the IT industry accounts for around 2 per cent of carbon dioxide emissions - much the same as aviation. (...)"

Read more about it here.

Another obvious and forseeable exemple of a mish-mash situation: energetic costs of computers, communication and processing power, "cyber carbon footprint".
Ubiquitous computing is probably close to happen (or has it already happened? we can definitely discuss about this), but it sure wouldn't be a luxury to think twice about its energetic counterpart before it happens, so to not contribute to an already outdated universe on a sustainable design point of view, no matter what "sci-fi" it might look like.

Thanks http://del.icio.us/regine for the link to the article of The Independent.

Posted by patrick keller at 13. 06. 2007 14:26