Greenpeace Says the Internet Emits Too Much CO2 370
Pharmboy writes "A new report put out by Greenpeace argues that the IT sector is not doing enough to decrease reliance on 'dirty energy', saying the Internet, if it were treated as its own country, would be the 5th largest emitter of greenhouse gases. 'Many companies, the organization said, tightly guard data about the environmental impact and energy consumption of their IT operations. They also focus more on using energy efficiently than on sourcing it cleanly.' The report (PDF) doesn't mention how much CO2 is saved by telecommuting and higher corporate efficiency, however. So, exactly how 'green' or 'polluting' is the internet, really?"
Yeah well... (Score:4, Insightful)
Greenpeace emits too much hot air.
Greenpeace? (Score:2, Insightful)
Stone Age (Score:5, Insightful)
Can't do nuclear, can't put windmills up due to the birds or hurting the value of the Kennedy compound. Ethanol doesn't work. Honestly, I don't think the environmentalists will be happy until we're back to living in caves and dying at around age 25 from famine.
The Internet says Greenpeace tastes like chicken (Score:5, Insightful)
Slow roasted Greenpeace over a hickory smoked fire. Famous Dave's Devil's Spit barbecue sauce slathered all over, popping and sizzling in the hot coals as it slowly drips. Next to it, a rack of Greenpeace ribs slathered in the same sauce, cooks to perfection as it fills the air with a smokehouse aroma.
over a hot fire
I can't wait to take a bite
Greenpeace is cooking
Re:FFS (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course without the "internet" Greenpeace wouldn't have a means to complain about the internet. Sure they are a few Greenpeace rep's out in the cities when the weather is nice, but they're usually lost amongst the rest of the aggressive pan-handlers.
As usual, they're simply trying to make a statement in a controversial manner. The internet isn't it's own country, it's a communication medium. If they wanted to make a serious statement, they could focus on the waste involved in the manufacture of disposable (quickly obsolete) electronics or focus on the power plants we get our energy from. No-one's going to give up the internet to save the planet, arguments like this just continue to paint Greenpeace as a collection of sensationalist, attention-whoring, hippies.
Re:Stone Age (Score:2, Insightful)
CO2 of things it replaces? (Score:5, Insightful)
Has Greenpeace calculated reduced fuel consumption due to decreased snail-mail volume? Reduced travel CO2 due to IM, video-conference, and other IP-based technology? The contribution of computing to developing greener technologies?
Run those calcs and get back to us.
Re:FFS (Score:5, Insightful)
Successful activist groups work a lot like corporations. They either need to grow or die. Because if they just try to solve one problem in the world they will more likely succeed then they will out of business and then will need to refile as an other NPO for the next thing. So Greenpeace like PETA, and MAAD, Pro-Life and Pro-Choice groups they expand their scope of problems so they will stay in business longer (Espectially if their goal is popular enough they quickly get big enough where they have paid staff and a CEO who making 6 - 7 figures a year) but by expanding their scope they actually hinder on getting anything meaningful done. If you want to save the Wales Greenpeace could probably do it. But they are too bogged down with their other issues to put effort into solving any one problem.
Re:FFS (Score:5, Insightful)
I could kind of get behind them when trying to protect living things like whales from overkilling...etc.
But geez..sounds like they're a bit like MADD...and going WAY beyond what they were originally set up for....
MADD now pretty much seems to want total prohibition...and Greenpeace is leaning towards the eco-paranoid where things won't be 'right' until we go back to a primitive caveman society...
Re:FFS (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Greenpeace? (Score:5, Insightful)
Still drinking Al Gore's Kool Aid in 2011 (Score:0, Insightful)
It's 2011. Someone still believes in:
1) Anthropogenic global warming
2) CO2 = pollutant/contributor to global warming
3) "We must reduce our carbon footprint!"
4) "Buy carbon credits!"
They're even teaching this nonsense in schools. Now your kids, and an entire generation of impressionable youths, will become useful idiots in the Green Cult.
In fact, I can see that some of you folks are already rank and file members of the Green Cult.
That's right. Go right ahead and continue with your heroic, altruistic efforts to save the f**kin' planet.
George Carlin is laughing at you.
What it really is (Score:5, Insightful)
Greenpeace is no longer an attack upon pollution. It is an attack upon the concept of wealth.
Greenpeace has a problem with Internet energy use only when it doesn't serve Greenpeace, its political activities, and its ability to indulge in the great human urge to tell others what to do. Greenpeace, like the Sierra Club ('wilderness is for rich people only") and PETA ("let's get naked and pipe-bomb universities"), has become an embarrassment and a liability to the concepts of environmentalism and conservation. They help the cause of environmentalism about as much as a parade of drag queens dressed in rubber nun outfits masturbating each other whenever the traffic lights turn red help obtain gay rights.
There was a time, long ago, when I supported Greenpeace. But now... they ARE the problem. You can't make changes by alienating the mainstream, no matter how much of "I'm a rebel!" gives you a hard-on when you look in the mirror.
Re:FFS (Score:4, Insightful)
Then there is the cost of printing paper, ink & all sorts of consumables
That particular cost is not a problem on the IT side but rather a reflection of the deficiencies outside of IT that require that interface. As a software engineer my workspace is dominated by monitors not paper. In a given week my total output to a printer is less than five pages. I have a pad of paper and a pen which I use for meeting notes, and scratch. One pad typically lasts me between two and three months. The same cannot be said for sales, nor the front office, etc.
Re:FFS (Score:5, Insightful)
The more important question is, how exactly does one "choose" a green energy source. I don't know about other parts of the world, but up here in Canada we generally only have one choice of power provider. We don't get to shop around for which power plant we want to produce our power. I guess if you are big enough to be able to "choose a location for the new datacenter" then you kinda can... but for the large majority of users not so much.
It's not like their power is being wasted or there is a massive surplus of clean energy being generated that goes to waste. If your company uses power from that "clean" source, then that means someone else has to get their electricity from another source.
Unless of course... you're suggesting that companies pay extra for their electricity on condition of it being clean to ensure it's made artificially more profitable for a clean source to produce that electricity.
Re:FFS (Score:5, Insightful)
On the flip side of computing, the retired computers were fuel hogs by todays standards. Most reasonably modern desktop computers outperform the Cray 1 Supercomputer of the past. They have more memory, more disk storage, much faster processing, and don't need a refrigeration system to keep it cool.
It was a 64 bit machine with 8 megs of ram with a clock speed under 100 Megs. That is 0.1 Ghz for you young whippersnappers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cray-1 [wikipedia.org]
To replace the internet with a telephone system and library with as much information at our fingertips would be a feat that makes the true efficiency of the communications and data storage of the modern Internet look truly efficient.
Moving to more efficient access with netbooks, phones, pads, etc and more efficient hosting shows there is still improvement in energy cost savings as well as reduction in greenhouse gases.
Even the new Facebook datacenter in Oregon is an improvement.