Computer Clouds and Energy Hogs

It seems that all my recycling, composting, walking and general overall attempts not to rape and pillage the planet may well have been in vain. I was really shocked by an article I read last night in The Economist about the environmental effects of computer/internet habits, more specifically 'cloud computing'. 'Cloud' implies a weightlessness, an unconnectedness to the physical and resource-constrained world. In fact the opposite is true:

The corollary of more computing in the sky is more and bigger data centres on earth. These are warehouses packed with humming electronic gear, and in particular thousands of servers, the powerful computers that crunch and dish up data. The biggest facilities are the size of half a dozen football pitches and house as many as 80,000 servers. They are huge energy hogs: in America alone data centres already account for 1.5% of electricity consumption. This figure is growing. Globally, they are already responsible for more carbon-dioxide emissions per year than Argentina or the Netherlands.

I think I preferred blissful ignorance. One more thing to worry about. I'll add it to the list.
Economist: 'Buy our stuff, save the planet'

Comments

[Late Adopter]

Birdinita,

You can't take the weight of the world on your birdie shoulders.

Take a leaf out of t'Economist's book and be reassured that some clever white-coated fucker will sort it all out and everything will be fine.

My environmental effort this weekend will be to nab a canvas bag emblazoned with 'My other bag's a Louis Vuitton'. Nice.

E x