Is Google Green?
Is Google green? Don't get me wrong, I think Google is very innovative and I use many of their services (gmail, reader, chat, notes, spreadsheets); but what is the environmental impact of using Google (think of the computers, the electricity, the immense data centers that Google is building)? What sort of infrastructure is necessary? What sort of resource use is required for me (and many, many others) to enjoy all those Google services? (Perhaps I should call it the electronic ecology of Google or the techno-industrial ecology)
This is not a light question. It is often assumed about new technologies that since they create new capabilities, productivity gains, and efficiencies, that its very traditional resource consumption is inconsequential.
It is a questioin I intend to address here frequently: how does our use and development of technology co-exist with the ecological network in which we create the technology? Or more simply put--can technology be green?
This is not a light question. It is often assumed about new technologies that since they create new capabilities, productivity gains, and efficiencies, that its very traditional resource consumption is inconsequential.
It is a questioin I intend to address here frequently: how does our use and development of technology co-exist with the ecological network in which we create the technology? Or more simply put--can technology be green?
posted by Urban Peasant at 7:14 PM
1 Comments:
I think it goes beyond Google, too -- think of Amazon's ecommerce centers, or the server farms of Yahoo, etc. It's easy to forget just how much energy underpins our "virtual" infrastructure.
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