|
|
|
Green Computing |
[Design] |
|
Posted on November 13, 2008 @ 08:22:00 AM by Paul Meagher
The concept of Green Computing has been on my mind of late. Rasmus Lerdorf, who pioneered the PHP programming language (which this site utilizes), mentioned Green Computing in his keynote speech Simple is Hard (Aug 20, 2008). The talk focused more on optimizing web applications using various debugging tools and it was in this context that the Green Computing remarks below were made.
Attendee, meyers, summarizes Rasmus's views as follows:
if we could take all the web apps in the world and speed them up by 100, we could have a lot less data centers and servers - we used to count cycles when writing c code, and no one tracks that level today. Green computing - we need to save the trees (and kittens) by writing cleaner code - we'd need fewer servers...
Green Computing consumes fewer computational resources which reduces the need for more servers, power, physical space, retail cycles, etc.... A more fleshed out concept of Green Computing might be capable of acting as a powerful guide to best practice in computing? Green Computing is not wasteful of computational resources, is biomimetic, and is sustainable. These Green Computing principles can perhaps be applied to all levels of computing from hardware to software.
|
|
0 Comments | Permalink |
|
How green are you? |
[Design] |
|
Posted on September 25, 2008 @ 07:30:00 AM by Paul Meagher
There are many bodies out there willing to certify how green you are. A new one is called Degree of Green. The idea is to rate your company according to 3 main criteria: health impacts, environmental impact, and sustainability. Based on these ratings you can provide consumers with some of their marketing material to indicate where your company rate's on these three dimensions.
What is interesting about this effort is that it makes the point that "being green" isn't a one-dimensional concept; that at the very least it consist of environmental, health, and sustainability dimensions and that comsumers may be more interested on one dimension versus another or particular combinations.
|
|
0 Comments | Permalink |
|
Eco-advertising |
[Design] |
|
Posted on September 19, 2008 @ 08:00:00 AM by Paul Meagher
In their 2008 book, The Hot Topic, Gabrielle Walker and Sir David King observe that:
The richer the world gets, the farther it wants to travel and the less carbon efficient the means it chooses. As the wealth of a nation rises, its citizens change from walking and cycling, through buses and local trains, to cars, high-speed trains, and air travel. (p. 110)
Overlain on this tendency towards travelling further using less carbon efficient modes of transport, is the imperitive that "bigger is better". Given this mentality, cycling is often perceived as either not progressive or reflective of a low wealth status.
In much of the consumer imagery around automobiles is the idyllic green nature scene with the vehicle comfortably situated in it. The imagery is meant to suggest that buying this vehicle is either good for the planet or better for the planet relative to another vehicle. But is it?
Perhaps one of the options that we should be advertising is the choice between buying a vehicle and not buying a vehicle. To sell the null purchase option might require a more aggressive approach towards the automobile industry in which vehicles are situated in less appealing surroundings, some atmospheric facts and societal trend data are quoted, and the real option is put to the consumer: purchase a vehicle which may spew more co2 and pollutants than your moral quota, or investigate and spend your money on alternative methods of transport.
The green movement has recognized the need for eco-justice lawyers to defend the earth against unsustainable development, however it does not seem to have recognized the need for eco-advertisers to help shift the consumer mindscape into more sustainable directions.
|
|
0 Comments | Permalink |
|
Geo-engineering to the rescue |
[Design] |
|
Posted on September 18, 2008 @ 08:00:00 AM by Paul Meagher
Some scientists think we have gone beyond the tipping point with respect to runaway climate change or that we will lack the political will to carry out the necessary steps to reduce our usage of fossil fuels in time to prevent catastrophic outcomes. When all hope is lost where you gonna turn? Carbon-busters, otherwise known as Geo-engineers.
The idea behing geo-engineering is that we can engineer our way out of the global warming problem. I am familiar with two geo-engineering schemes for doing this.
One sheme put forward by atmospheric scientist and Nobel Laureate, Paul Crutzen, involves injecting clouds with sulpher dioxide to reflect sunlight back out into space and offset the effects of global warming.
A second scheme put forward by Klaus Lackner from Columbia University involves gigantic chimneys that would pump polluted air from the surroundings, scrub the carbon from it, and then prepare the collected material for sequestration. This idea is being proposed as a way to win the Branson prize of 25 million for a way to eliminate 1 billion or more tons of co2 from the atmosphere.
The second scheme seems much more promising to me especially if you imagine each major city in the world with enough carbon scrubbers to offset the amount they are putting into the atmosphere. Actually, each major city in the developed world would probably be obligated to operate more scrubbers than would be needed in order to help the less developed world - or finance the installation of scrubbers there.
|
|
0 Comments | Permalink |
|
The market for green building and design |
[Design] |
|
Posted on July 31, 2008 @ 06:02:00 AM by Paul Meagher In the CNN article, Going green a growing trend among homeowners, they report that 6% of residential construction in 2008 was "green", up from 2% in 2005. Current ideas about "Green Building" can be found in a recent Smart Home exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. The exhibit is actually a fully functional urban-house designed by architect Michelle Kaufmann. The design embraces concepts like using recycled materials, using sustainable building materials like bamboo flooring, conserving water, and real-time metering of power usage (i.e., a "dashboard" for home power usage).
|
|
0 Comments | Permalink |
|
|
