You may have been reading some of the latest Live Earth posts from TMC’s Green Blog. As I sit here at my computer watching streaming concerts from around the globe I start to think about the massive quantity of data I am consuming. I noticed my wife too is streaming the concert on her computer. I wonder if this weekend will prove to be one of the most bandwidth-intensive in history. I imagine it has to be.
I bet we see many stories on Monday about how the world’s Internet infrastructure was tested like never before this weekend. My experience so far has been good so at least in Connecticut; the servers, routers and switches all seemed to hold up just fine.
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Rich,
I just found your post in the green blog category on Technorati. Your comment about the consumption of bandwidth is interesting. Amazing how our consumption culture knows no bounds. Some of it is good, some of it very bad. I have not researched the subject, but it would be interesting to know what is the balance sheet in terms of the net impact of high technology on climate change.
marguerite
green blogger, http://lamarguerite.wordpress.com
Great question and thanks for the comment. IMHO technology has been a primary reason for increased electricity consumption and as a result, carbon emissions. Just think about how many computers, cordless phones and cell phones a home has today. How many did it have ten years ago? Twenty years? We are in gadget mode with iPods, iPhones, HDTVs, surround sound stereos, DVD players, TVs in multiple rooms, etc.
It goes on and on. Consumers and consumer electronics devices are major contributors to polluting the environment. In addition, there is the problem of disposing of all these gadgets and their batteries. There is no doubt, tech is having a major negative impact on the environment.
As you probably know my company TMC sponsors an event call Green Technology World (www.greentechnologyworld.com) which is focused on the technology which will hopefully reverse this trend. For example technology which allows people to work more efficiently at home so they don’t need to commute to work as often (or at all). In addition, technology which will make servers more efficient in data centers, etc.
We are really at a point where technology which is a major source of the carbon emissions can be a major part of the green solution.
I watched hours of Live Earth on TV, to review, so that wasn't too healthy for the environment either, but the event gave the global warming issue a very high profile.
Hopefully we can look back on Live Earth and see it as a giant leap forward - in terms of consciousness about this issue.