Is technology the answer?
As I write this I am sitting on my couch at home on a Saturday afternoon. It is snowing outside so I have my heat on, two lamps on, my tv on as sort of background noise and my laptop in my lap. I am sucking down electricity directly from at least 4 things. The good news is that while I am working I am printing as little as possible and I am therefore not putting much into paper folders for later reference. So am I environmentally friendly or not? I am saving trees but I am using more and more electricity.
Here is another situation I have been thinking about lately. As a consultant I spend more and more time in places that have free wi-fi or access to multiple electrical outlets. I need electricity to do my job and I have learned during my time as a consultant that more and more people are just like me. Most of these people do not carry around portable printers and just like in my situation above they print as little as possible. Is the proliferation of electricity junkies who do not use a lot of paper a good thing or a bad thing? Are we just substituting one problem for another?
I think the virtual office is a great thing. I also think it is great that technology has advanced so much that we are all now more portable and more productive. That said all of the technology does run on electricity and at the end of the day I am curious to know if the environment is going to pay for our reliance on technology and electricity.
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Comments
Just be smarter about your energy consumption.
1. Turn the tv off.
2. Turn the heat down and put on a sweatshirt.
3. Turn off one of the lamps. Sit closer to the one that is on.
4. Use CFL bulbs in lights that you use for longer than a few minutes at a time.
5. Turn the heat down when you're not home.
6. Get a thermostat timer thinger (I'm in an apt, so don't have one) which automatically changes the temp depending on the time of day.
You can also use surge protectors and turn those off when you aren't using anything that is plugged in to them. We do this with our tv, Xbox, sound system, etc. They're energy vampires - you just need to cut off their supply.
I live in MN and know where you're coming from with the cold weather complaints. We just wear layers and use blankets (and drink loads of hot liquids) so we don't need to crank the heat to 75.
Posted by: M | December 7, 2009 12:42 PM
The environment is already paying for our reliance on technology. More than 3.2 million tons of e-waste end up in landfills. The US exports some 300,000 and 400,000 tons of computer junk to Asia annually. Only about 14% of computer parts can be recycled. The average Internet user, browsing the web 12 hours a week, 52 weeks a year will burn 300 pounds of coal to generate the needed electricity.
While you didn't print much you also didn't save any trees. Trees are a renewable resource---a crop if you will---that are constantly being replenished by the paper and forestry industry. The USDA Forest Service says about 4 million (yes, million) trees are planted daily in the U.S., 1.7 million by the forest products and paper industry. The demand for paper helps create incentives for landowners to renew their forests and keeps commercial and housing developments at bay. There are 12 million more acres of forestland in the US than 20 years ago, which means that US forest growth has exceeded harvests since the 1940's. Paper a renewable resource, decomposes quickly in landfills and can be recycled---indeed almost 60% of all paper in the US already is.
Reading news online will generate 35kg of CO-2 annually compared to reading a printed newspaper which generates 28kg of CO-2 annually. US data centers---server farms---use lots of energy to run and cool thousands of servers every day. In 2006 server farms demanded 61 billion kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity and US Department of Energy projections say that will grow to 107 billion kilowatt hours (kWh) in 2011.
Posted by: Print. The Renewable Way A Responsible World Communicates | December 7, 2009 4:44 PM