GreenSmart vs. GreenDumb

Vicki Kriz, author of GreenSmart: Save trees, pay bills online | USA WEEKEND Magazine, published July 5, 2009, points out that paying bills online may save 181,000 trees. At first glance, a wise idea, right? “To find out the impact your household could make, use the ‘Green Calculator’ at payitgreen.org,” the article concludes.

But who’s asking the next relevant question: How many trees are we trading for coal-burning smokestacks vis-à-vis the exponentially increasing load our proliferating gadgets place on electrical power plants?

Consider the carbon footprint of the Internet itself — not to mention the many gadgets plugged in around the globe. The electrical requirements are astounding, yet as long as the public perceives all things Internet and electronic, in general, as a “free Green lunch”, no end is in sight.

“A typical server farm uses 10 to 20 megawatts of power per hour — roughly the equivalent of 10,000 to 20,000 homes with every light and appliance turned on, says Jeff Monroe, VP of design and construction for Metro-media Fiber Network. “On a watts-per-square-foot perspective, data centers are one of the highest energy users in any industry,” Monroe told writer Elinor Abreu of The Industry Standard in 2001.

Today, the demand for new server farm territory has grown more than ever, Microsoft, Google and others admit. Undoubtedly, these football-field size data facilities compete for forested lands and prime agricultural growing areas, too. The green side to digital would appear, in fact, gray.

Who, in the meantime, is factoring in the reality that trees are a fully recyclable, renewable resource — which when cultivated promote an environmental balance — whereas the pursuit and production of petro-chemicals in plastics and the electronic circuitry used in everything from desktop PCs to Kindle electronic reading devices contain heavy metals and a host of other toxins?

“On average, the production of one eight-inch wafer [chip] requires 3,787 gallons of waste water, 27 pounds of chemicals, 29 cubic feet of hazardous gases and nine pounds of hazardous waste. These chemicals and gases include glycol ethers, which have been identified as ’serious reproductive toxins’ by the EPA,” the Earth Action Network, Inc. wrote in 1997.

To feed the world’s growing obsession with all things tech and geek, workers in Third World high-tech manufacturing plants are exposed not merely to paper dust or printing inks, but to to far worse. And it is the Third World nations, again, who accept thousands of tons of electronic scrap the First World discards — with impoverished children in Africa, India and Asia on the front lines of exposure! So you tell me: Does the notion of a “carbon footprint” tell the whole story, or has it perversely enticed us to embrace another form of harm entirely?

In pursuit of our electronic love affair, it would appear that even the most eco-conscious among us have all but forgotten that few of the devices we depend on offer biodegradability or a minimally toxic manufacturing processes. Lest we forget, those are fair considerations too — more so than a carbon footprint alone can hope to quantify.

The mythologies of going Green are frightfully deep and pervasive. If only it were so simple: Trade this evil for thus-and-such eco-friendly solution! Yet for every action, an equal but opposite reaction. And from the looks of things, a more insidious one at that.

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Resources:

Why is E-Waste Dangerous?

Much Toxic Computer Waste Lands in Third World

Toxic Technology: Electronics and the Silicon Valley

Are Electronic Gadgets Really Energy Vampires?

Part 1: The Electric Grid—Now and in the Future

Part 2: The Electric Grid—Now and in the Future

Waste Not, Want Not: Energy via the Smart Grid

Energy Hogs on the Server Farm

Behold The Server Farm

Down on the Server Farm (PDF)

NRDC: Trees vs. Books

Save Trees and Read Green with a Kindle

We are the World — and the World Killed Michael Jackson

Michael Jackson, the “King of Pop“, made an untimely exit from the stage of life after suffering a cardiac arrest Thursday, June 25, Brian Oxman, a Jackson family attorney, reports. More shockingly, Oxman told a CNN reporter that he warned the Jackson family that the star may be headed for a fate not unlike Anna Nicole Smith, who died little over two years ago following prolonged prescription painkiller dependence. Smith also lost her teenage son to a fatal drug interaction in 2006. In Jackson’s case, Oxman says the entertainer suffered chronic pain from a multitude of former stage injuries, among them a fractured vertebra and a broken leg.

Prescription drug abuse often starts legitimately enough. Life happens. We suffer injuries and accidents. And we don’t want to live like cripples before our time. But oftentimes the so-called cure comes with its own consequences.

If Justice is Blind, Sotomayor is Anything But

Prospective Supreme Court justice Sonia Sotomayor has yet to complete the vetting process but already controversy over a comment she made in 2001 has erupted. In “A Latina Judge’s Voice“, a lecture presented at the law school of the University of California, Berkeley, Sotomayor said that her Latina heritage undeniably plays a role in her judgments. “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life,” Sotomayor told her audience. 

Rethinking Globalism: Why We Need a Cell-Based Economy

When you listen to the pundits and economic experts, you come away with a mixed bag of blame for the economic woes the United States, and by turn the global economy, presently faces.

At first blush, it’s middle class “Annie” with her subprime mortgage, too ignorant or materialistic to admit that she can’t afford the McMansion she lives in.

At second glance, it is the greedy, not-my-problem mortgage broker who knows banks routinely sell off homeowners’ loans to Wall Street investors who will be left holding the bag when homeowners default.

When Apathy Comes Home to Roost

Political Apathy Destroys Life and Liberty

 

In Germany, they came first for the Communists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist;

And then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist;

And then they came for the Jews, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew;

And then… they came for me… And by that time there was no one left to speak up.

 

— Pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984)

 

 

Economic Policy Produces Real-World Consequences

 

In the United States, they came down first on the unions, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a union member;

And then they came for the mill workers, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a mill worker;

And then they came for the factory workers, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a factory worker;

And then they came for the white collar jobs, And by that time there was no one left to speak up for me;

At last they came for my children and grandchildren, And now they are paying the price for my mistakes.

 

— May 14, 2009, The Social Critic

Christians for Torture?

In two articles posted at LewRockwell.com on the subject of torture in defense of national security, author Laurence M. Vance calls Christians to contemplate whether violence and faith agree. The matter has also come to the attention of The Associated Press in an article titled “Torture debate prompts evangelical soul-searching“.

Share your thoughts: Are the responsibilities of faith and patriotism always compatible? Does this pose a stumbling block to yourself? What does it convey to those who believe their torture has come at the hands of a “Christian Nation”?

Christians for Torture

Waterboard an A-rab for Jesus

The End of America — YouTube/Naomi Wolf

Torture Revisited — YouTube/Allen Hunt Show