“To be clear: We are not picking on Apple. We are not dissing the iPad. But maybe someone can come up with an app that calculates the carbon footprint of using different web sites based on their location and energy deals,” Greenpeace writes. “Apple is the master of promotion, and while we marvel at the sleek unpolluted design of the iPad, we need to think about where this is all leading and how like all good surfers we can make sure our environment stays clean and green.”
MacDailyNews Take: One would surmise that when iPad becomes insanely popular, quite a few forests worth of greenhouse gas-absorbing trees will be spared from paper mills, right? So, how many iPad-saved trees would it take offset Apple’s carbon footprint?
Greenpeace continues, “The report builds on previous industry research and shows that at current growth rates data centers and telecommunication networks will consume about 1,963 billion kilowatt hours of electricity in 2020. That is more than triple their current consumption and more than the current electricity consumption of France, Germany, Canada and Brazil combined. However, the report also shows how IT can avert climate chaos by becoming a transformative force advocating for solutions that increase the use of renewable energy.”
“IT companies… could use that influence to promote policies that will allow them to grow responsibly without fueling climate change,” Greenpeace writes. “For example, Facebook recently announced the construction of its own data center in Prineville, Oregon, running primarily on coal. By choosing energy company PacifiCorp, a utility that sources the majority of its power from coal-fired power stations, Facebook missed a chance to promote the use of renewable energy and instead reinforced the coal industry’s grip on the United Sates power grid.”
Greenpeace writes, “The IT sector has the ability to help us combat climate change by innovating to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase energy efficiency.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: What percentage of the current period of climate change is attributable to human activity? We ask because Greenpeace seems to attribute approximately 100% of the cause of climate change to human activity, but we all know that past periods of climate change (warming and subsequent cooling) occurred without humans burning coal, oil, and gas; in fact, past periods of dramatic climate change happened without humans at all. These past periods of climate change have been attributed to the release of carbon dioxide and methane greenhouse gases due to large volcanic eruptions, undersea landslides, and also with periods of greater sun activity, among other theories. So, if humans instantaneously disappeared right now, to what degree would this current period of climate change be “combatted?” 100%, 0.01%, or what? We don’t know. Does anybody?
If we all went solar today, could we affect climate change drastically or would it be barely noticeable? If we all went solar in 1920, would the climate be cooler (or warmer) than it is today? If so, by how much? A lot or a little? Knowing what percentage of the current period of climate change is attributable to human activity would give us a much better handle on how much time, money, energy, and emotion should be invested in reducing human-generated emissions. If anyone can point us to apolitical, untainted sources, we’re interested in exploring their findings and learning about their methodology.
Despite not knowing the degree of influence humans have on climate change, we agree with the basic premise that renewable, clean energy is the superior choice for large – and small – energy consumers whenever reasonably possible if, for no other reason, than spewing pollutants (sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, arsenic, lead, mercury, etc.) into the air and water is simply not healthy!
The electricity to run Apple’s billion-dollar data center in Maiden, NC is generated via nuclear power. The Town of Maiden operates its own electric distribution system and substations. Maiden is a member of North Carolina Municipal Power Agency which obtains power from the Catawba Nuclear Station. This association provides Maiden with an abundance of base load generation.
[UPDATE: 11:45am EDT: Added the info and link regarding the source of electricity for Apple’s billion-dollar data center in Maiden, NC.]
[Attribution: AppleInsider. Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Greg H.” and “Jersey_Trader” for the heads up.]
Fsck Greenpeace.
Their whole purpose as an organization is to attract donations by creating high-profile media stories. They have no actual interest in improving anything.
I stopped listening to them years ago.
The report totally disregards all the unrecycled crap that will not end up in landfills as a result of e-media.
Millions and millions of bulky desktops and laptops use more electricity than iPad and iPhone which can be charged (unlike a desktop) for an hour or two and then stay working for 10 hours or so.
Even if data centers grow in size, a decrease in home and work PCs occurs at the same time when things are “in the cloud”. It is a smaller carbon footprint to have thousands of servers in a datacenter serving a city with millions of iPhones and iPads, compared to a city having millions of desktop PCs and power hungry laptops.
So, Greenpeace is really wrong and they have no data that even makes sense.
However, they are right that increased technology means increased electricity. We need to harness sun and wind to avoid further mining and destruction of our planet. Apple is forward thinking but the electric companies of the world are not. Its not just the US that mines and burns coal, other countries around the world are doing the same. Mining, burning, polluting, it will catch up to all of us. We do need to make some big changes now to protect our planet. Its not just talk. 100 years ago, the industrial revolution was underway and since then, we have built millions upon millions of cars, mined oil for gas and plastic like its going out of style, and polluted the heck out of our planet. We need to make changes now. It is true and its not anti-business to say that. This is an issue that is very big and had an effect on us now and on our kids, etc. Let’s work together.
Let the flaming begin! (duck).
The forword to the book: Jurassic Park
“You think man can destroy the planet? What intoxicating vanity. Let me tell you about our planet. Earth is four-and-a-half-billion-years-old. There’s been life on it for nearly that long, 3.8 billion years. Bacteria first; later the first multicellular life, then the first complex creatures in the sea, on the land. Then finally the great sweeping ages of animals, the amphibians, the dinosaurs, at last the mammals, each one enduring millions on millions of years, great dynasties of creatures rising, flourishing, dying away — all this against a background of continuous and violent upheaval. Mountain ranges thrust up, eroded away, cometary impacts, volcano eruptions, oceans rising and falling, whole continents moving, an endless, constant, violent change, colliding, buckling to make mountains over millions of years. Earth has survived everything in its time. It will certainly survive us. If all the nuclear weapons in the world went off at once and all the plants, all the animals died and the earth was sizzling hot for a hundred thousand years, life would survive, somewhere: under the soil, frozen in Arctic ice. Sooner or later, when the planet was no longer inhospitable, life would spread again. The evolutionary process would begin again. It might take a few billion years for life to regain its present variety. Of course, it would be very different from what it is now, but the earth would survive our folly, only we would not. If the ozone layer gets thinner, ultraviolet radiation sears the earth, so what? Ultraviolet radiation is good for life. It’s powerful energy. It promotes mutation, change. Many forms of life will thrive with more UV radiation. Many others will die out. Do you think this is the first time that’s happened? Think about oxygen. Necessary for life now, but oxygen is actually a metabolic poison, a corrosive glass, like fluorine. When oxygen was first produced as a waste product by certain plant cells some three billion years ago, it created a crisis for all other life on earth. Those plants were polluting the environment, exhaling a lethal gas. Earth eventually had an atmosphere incompatible with life. Nevertheless, life on earth took care of itself. In the thinking of the human being a hundred years is a long time. A hundred years ago we didn’t have cars, airplanes, computers or vaccines. It was a whole different world, but to the earth, a hundred years is nothing. A million years is nothing. This planet lives and breathes on a much vaster scale. We can’t imagine its slow and powerful rhythms, and we haven’t got the humility to try. We’ve been residents here for the blink of an eye. If we’re gone tomorrow, the earth will not miss us.
If somebody wanted to spend the time and energy to skew data from anything, they could present a plausible case for ‘Why this is a bad thing for global warming.” a good debater could make a case for why it is really caused by whale farts and therefore green peace is to blame. Bad Greenpeace, bad! Granted, it may take an unusually talented Master Debater
MDN, please don’t tell us that you’re one of those who thinks that global warming is still a debatable topic. In scientific communities, it’s as debatable as evolution. No respectable scientist doesn’t think humans have contributed substantially to the massive uptick in global warming we’ve seen since the dawn of the industrial age; at this point, the debate is over exactly how much we’ve contributed (and the range there is from “kind of a lot” to “a shitload”; not “barely at all” to “a shitload”), where will current trends lead us, and what can we do to curb it. In that light, Greenpeace’s article is very measured and sensible. Google and (amazingly) Wal-Mart have taken serious steps towards reducing their corporate carbon footprint, and they should be lauded for that. It’s both good environmental policy *and* economic policy for them. Asking that other major players in the IT world (Apple, Facebook, etc) consider the environmental impact of massive data centers is by no means a stupid question.
And, lest we discount Greenpeace completely here, their campaign against Apple 3 years ago has led Apple to be out in front on green products. Greenpeace may be a bunch of snarky pricks, but having Apple’s products / packaging / shipping channels be as green as possible is good for everybody.
GP is ridiculous. Who the hell are they (and why does my iphone keep subbing he’ll when I try to type hell?? – I intend to write hell dammit!) and who elected them keepers of the planet?
Climate change is the most idiotic cause I’ve ever heard of. They might as well have picked atmospheric pressure. So it got a little warmer than usual for a few years. Things change no matter what we do. When the earth was formed, there was no oxygen in the atmosphere. A few millenia ago there were ice bridges all over.
I thought libs loved change anyway?
Climate change aside, there is a legitimate argument to be made about conserving energy purely from a cost point of view. In addition, even if pollution form sources such as energy production don’t effect the climate they do have an impact on our environment even if only on a visual level. Different subject, but I’ve always thought that emissions from cars should be reduced purely because they’re dirty and make living in cities that much less pleasant.
Personally whilst cloud computing definitely has it’s logical benefits, Greenpeace issues aside, without superfast broadband there are impracticalities of constantly shifting data back and forth rather than just accessing it locally. I think there needs to be a solid middle ground between storing data on a device and accessing it in the cloud.
Climate change is one thing, but there are other advantages to using less energy, it irritates me how Greenpeace and organisations like them seem to only focus in on this one thing.
I’d also like to point out that I think climate change is real — it just makes sense on a logical level.
It took hundreds of millions of years for the earth’s natural processes to sequester huge volumes of carbon underground. In only two hundred years we’ve released a large portion of that carbon back into the atmosphere (how much? we have no idea. maybe 5% of the total reserves? — considering most of the hydrocarbon reserves are out of our reach geographically or geologically).
Whatever the numbers, that must by definition have an impact.
Having said that, I’d rather we don’t screw up millions of people’s lives while we tool around with hundreds of little solutions. With energy consumption going up at 15% each year, we can’t solve the problem with small incremental improvements.
We need to be thinking 50-100 years out. And we need to be thinking 100% solution (okay, maybe 85% solution / 15% hydrocarbons). We need an Apollo program.
As usual, MDN immediately gets to the crux of the issue:
“What percentage of the current period of climate change is attributable to human activity?”
Thanks for a thought-provoking Take, MDN!
I am an environmentalist at heart, but these radical, militant groups give the movement a bad name!
To address MDN’s take, whilst some of the climate change can have a non-human component, it is clear that the majority of greenhouse gas emission is from human activity. And please don’t discount other forms of environmental damage like pollution, acid rain etc. All of these contribute to making sustainability in the future less likely.
To address Greenpeace’s comments. They are correct that the web in general does use a lot of electricity. However innovations like these also provide services that reduce travel since meetings can be held online, provide paperless information distribution reduce reduce the need to cut down trees, and greater efficiency in many industries because of new ways to do business and advertise.
Servers are becoming faster and more energy efficient, solar energy is being applied more routinely and devices are becoming more economically efficient.
All lot more needs to be done but steps in the right direction are being taken.
kenh
uh, so trillions of metric tons of pollutants created by factories, machines, and labs is NOT causing a problem?
during the time period you state (billions of years, by the way that is pure conjecture, just like the big bang theory – where did the bang take place? how did that place get there? what exploded? all pure conjecture) – anyways, during the time period you state the earth was not literally overrun by humans who cut down huge amounts of forest and vegetation. Why do you think so many animals are in danger of going extinct? You think spilling tankers of oil into the ocean is no big deal? How about polluting a high percentage of freshwater lakes and streams in the world?
In other words, producing chemicals and toxic pollutants on a grand scale is not a problem?
Come on, don’t be lazy. Make a change. Turn off a light if you leave the room, if that’s all you can do. Recycle. Do anything. Don’t give us “earth knows best” BS and so-called facts about polluting plants in the past. That’s conjecture and I’m stating facts, as always.
There needs to be some level of reasonable agreement on this topic people. We can’t rely on the earth to just fix everything for us. Greenhouse gases, melting icecaps, polluted water and air are real things. That’s why there are air quality warnings in cities are the world periodically, including Tampa, FL and Los Angeles, CA. Peace out bro.
MDN
KEEP TO THE COMPUTERS AND STAY OUTA POLITICS.
Leave the climate “skeptic” FUD propaganda to the coal industry, Exxon and the idiot zealots. Otherwise you put yourself in the same category.
The climate change debacle is dangerous.
Looks like this latest case of “we are all going to die” is another fictional crisis created by our favorite social engineer Al Gore. As you may or may not remember he told us back in the 80’s that “we are all going to die” because kids were listening to music that may have bad words in it. Hence, the Tipper Sticker. Instead of parents doing their job the Tipper Sticker was a visual indicator that the music their kids were listening to met the approval of the PMRC….ah how nice.
SO instead of seriously studying the climate and environment to insure that WE are not hurting the only planet we can survive on….Scientists, Acitvists, and the Internet Inventor have to scream out “we are all going to die” so they can social engineer us. Some do it to get grants others just plain greed. This entire debacle is a poor substitute for real science.
just my $0.02
@disposableidentity
your thoughts are disposable
Just continue repeating the right-wing mantra.
What – you think that the coal industry, the rest of the energy industry, and the right-wing think-tanks are NOT about money??
Try thinking for a change.
Short of “Greenpeace files bankruptcy, disbands” why does anyone bother reporting what these clowns say? They’ve reduced themselves to a core of money-drunk lobbyists surrounded by attention-whores.
Guys… I’m still trying to increase my carbon footprint!
5 pages is the over/under on the verbosity of the dunderheads mashing their keyboards to make a point that no one on the planet can verify one way or the other.
Anyone taking action?
jmmx: Learn how to read before posting.
Poor Algore and Greenslice. When it comes to the Internet it’s over. People don’t care about Algreenslice.
@Kenh
I like that post. I’d suggest that it may go further than that. The Earth could determine that humans are the enemy, endlessly attacking. she could just retaliate.
@MacAdvocate real helpful bro, so funny, i’m laughing on the inside, just a joke to you I guess? Guess you’re just so evolved and above it all.
@Ubermac – now that’s funny!
@Ray sounds like your 2 cents is to wait for more science? Seriously, that’s kind of the upshot of your comment after all. You are right that there is pandering and greed involved, but some of this stuff is a problem and is real. We need solutions to conserve energy and curb pollution.
Everyone can do something today. Think about what you do that pollutes or uses a lot of electrcity. Is there anything you can cut down on? I’m going to turn off a large server that’s been sitting running for no real reason. It uses electricity and for what? In case I need it? Off. Carbon footrprint (I actually hate that expression) shrinking.
“@hairbo
MDN, please don’t tell us that you’re one of those who thinks that global warming is still a debatable topic. In scientific communities, it’s as debatable as evolution. No respectable scientist doesn’t think humans have contributed substantially to the massive uptick in global warming we’ve seen since the dawn of the industrial age; at this point,”
I agree Hairbo!!! I sure hope Obama does more to destroy the rest of the county and run criminal corporations out of business who are destroying the Earth for our Children!!!!! Oh BOOO HOOOO, We need cap & trade!! And I bet you’re a deadbeat too aren’t you?? I notice that global warming nuts are also looking for free healthcare too!!! liberal bums too!!!
Oh BTW, you’re a Kook! There is no such thing as “man made global warming”.