Concerns over the Internet’s carbon footprint are growing exponentially with the ever increasing demands of energy for the soaring online industry. The costs of maintaining and serving the billions of web pages on the Internet are rising and has swollen carbon emissions by 10-percent each year, to a level that’s overtaking the air travel industry.

Former Anti-atomic Shelter Becomes an Internet Datacenter

Apparently a study by Rich Brown— energy analyst at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab in California, for the US environmental protection agency, revealed that US servers consumed a whopping 61 billion KWh of energy in 2006. That’s quite enough to supply the whole of the UK for two months …

Among the first to take action, the largest Internet giant— Google, have been trying to contain the rising electricity costs and to lower their own carbon footprint by adding their own datacenters. And although Google have spent $2.3 billion to develop sustainable technologies and infrastructure, they’re not sure if the balance is in their favor. “You have exponential growth in demand from users, and many of these services are free so you don’t have exponential growth of revenue to go with it,” says Urs Hölzle, VP of operations.

So, are we in danger of getting things out of control? Because at the staggering rate of growth we’ve seen online in the last few years, unless something is being done to reduce the carbon emissions of these servers, the generated environmental degradation is only going to mount.

Source: Guardian

It seems ironic and even startling to an extent when one gets to know that the paper industry across the world produces three times more carbon emissions than aviation industry.

It might be a touch unbelievable, but if you consider the fact that thousands of acres of trees are mowed down for paper and that subsequently only adds to carbon footprint, this is not all that surprising.

In the wake of UK formation of organizations such as Shrink which are asking people to reduce their paper consumption by 50% in UK and French supremo Sarkozy following the path, it only is fair that the entire planet takes up the cause as well.

Those who often calculate the carbon footprint left over by the paper industry, forget to add in the number of trees that have been chopped down for the wood. These reduced number of trees automatically means greater pollution.

According to a survey conducted by Xerox, 45% of all paper used by employees in firms reaches the dustbin. This, along with all the junk mail that we get further adds to wastage in paper. It is easy to look past something that we consider such an integral part of our life and waste it callously while it could still cause plenty of damage to the planet.

Using paper judiciously and reducing its wastage can easily help conserve more trees and also cut down on the whole carbon footprint. Many paper plantations are already highly contentious, especially in developing nations. By not printing stuff that we do not really need and by using recycled paper as often as we can, we can indeed help cut down on the staggering figures that are in front of us today.

Remember that every time you save a sheet of paper, you are adding something meaningful to the planet.

Source: The Guardian
Image courtesy of Deibu

Beer maker, Sapporo Breweries, has decided to put the carbon footprint of making its beers on the labels of their suds. The company estimates grain output, fertilizers, transporatation and the production and recycling of the aluminum can itself.

One 350 milliliter can of Black Label beer represents 161 grams of carbon emission says Sapporo Breweries.

Now a person can get drunk and not care about how much they are harming the environment at the same time. “Well, I may be skunk as a drunk, but I’m not planeting the destroy.”

What do you think? A marketing ploy or environmentally friendly policy? My take – marketing.

Sapporo Breweries needs all the attention it can get in Japan’s drunken beer market. Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry wants to push a carbon footprinting system on all products.

What next? A surgeon general warning -

“Warning. Drinking beer may cause global warming.”

Designed as “a rally car but for oceans”, Earthrace is a trimaran running on 100-percent pure biodiesel that wishes to set an around-the-world speed record with a net zero carbon footprint. They tried to break the record in 2007, but mechanical problems kept them from finishing the race.

The boat is famous not only for being featured on lots of news channels or because it runs safely on bio-diesel alone. Earthrace can submerge up to 23 feet in water if it needs to fight big waves and the most important fact is that parts of the boat are made from a hemp-based composite, bedding foams are made from canola oil, and the operation’s total carbon footprint has been balanced by purchasing carbon credits.

At a speed of 6 knots (6.9 mph) the boat goes up to 15,000 miles on a full tank, while at 25 knots (29 mph) it runs for 2,300 miles.

Previous record of 74 days, 23 hours and 53 minutes was set by UK boat Cable & Wireless Adventurer in 1998 and Earthrace plans to beat that time. They left Sagunto, Spain on April 27 and got to Panama traveling across the Atlantic in just 8 days. In their journey they will include a total of 12 refueling stops and will pass through the Suez and Panama canals.

Let’s hope they manage to break the record this time.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VK6nSJCw58[/youtube]

If you want to stay updated, check out the Earthrace blogs.

Source