Sunday’s headlines

9 comments

1. Aren’t candles less efficient than light bulbs thus producing more greenhouse gas? Wouldn’t traveling downtown to an event (even if you took the subway) make extra green house gas compared to staying home and reading a good book? The whole thing seems a little misguided…

2. I am strongly considering calling the Star subscription office to cancel. The drone at the call centre will ask why (as they always try to talk you out of it) to which I would say “your Earth Hour coverage. No paper means no environmental impact.” The Star online is free and I’m not sure there’s anything I’ll miss out on, especially now the “new” TV guide is rubbish.

3. James et al> I don’t understand the cynicism around this event. You could nitpick it to death, that’s not the point. Everytime there is some massive world event like this (like Live Earth) it introduces a few more people (probably on the scale of millions) to this issue. Tipping point, all that stuff — if you are already environmentally minded, this event isn’t for you. But it is not misguided, but it’s myopic to think so.

4. James- I assume the primary goal of the event is to raise awareness, and the small amount of energy saved isn’t really the point.. So in that context I don’t think holding an event to celebrate/publicise it is such a bad idea.

   Mark- I’m not sure I understand your point. Are you upset that they covered the event even though it takes a lot of energy to print and distribute a newspaper?

5. Mark> There is a fun take on your point here:

   http://www.slate.com/id/2185143/

   I think that over the next few years the concept that on-line has no or little cost will be something that gets more attention as larger and larger data farms are set up to supply the on-line world. One is starting to see more stories about this, especially in terms of the Colorado River. There have been other stories about data farms being setup in places like the Baltic states and Ukraine where cheap but very un-green power is available.This older Business Week story outlines what is going on and the enormous amount of power data farms use. It is interesting to see the intersection of old world water and new world internet.

6. Scott – thanks for that, it’s an interesting read. I guess my argument to the author would be twofold:

   1. Much of the Star goes unread, particularly the targeted weekend sections. That’s pure waste, but the likelihood of a “custom newspaper” arriving soon is low. There is also energy involved in transporting the used newspaper for recycling.

   2. With blade servers, virtual servers, server CPU throttling and other technological improvements, performance per watt is continually increasing whereas newspapers are unlikely to get much more efficient five years from now.

   James A – ah yes, awareness, #18 of Stuff White People Like 🙂

   I’m sort of serious about the environmental impact, sort of serious about finally giving the drone something other than “look, I don’t want to suspend my subscription” while wondering why I am obligated to explain my choice and sort of serious that as the last two weeks progressed the Earth Hour seemed like an excuse for the Star to fill pages. I also like a comment on Torontoist that wondered how much carbon dioxide the helicopter supplying Pulse24’s pictures was releasing.

7. That White People site has an entry for everything. It’s a satire sire, I don’t see how it applies here.

8. Even if you are trying to promote awareness, Earth Hour failed. It is just a gimmick. You need to teach people to make a smaller impact. This is definitely not about going back to a Victorian-era technology: for example, lighting a restaurant with candles as I heard on the radio this morning. Awareness is just a feel-good thing.

9. Mark> I agree about the Star in general, it is trying to have so many different sections that its low price will appeal to as many as possible.

   I would say though that as efficiency increases so does expectations and therefore power demand. I saw a toaster for sale in a store that proclaimed that it had 4 LEDs! Yippppe. And again there must be a reason data farms are being built near dirty but cheap energy sources overseas.

   By coincidence I was doing my annual cull of books and stuff to donate to Goodwill and after my first post my wife and I were saying to each other that we still feel that the phone book has relevance for us as it saves energy to not have to power up just to look up a number or search some business categories.