[CAnet - news] High Speed Internet Help Cools the Planet

For more information on this item please visit my blog at 
http://green-broadband.blogspot.com/ or http://billstarnaud.blogspot.com
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[Lightreading has been carrying a very useful blog on the Future of the
Internet. Your faithful correspondent has been making some contributions in
regards on how the Internet and ICT in general can contribute in reducing
CO2 emissions.  This can be done in 3 ways:

(a) The Internet and ICT industry has the tools today to reduce to its own
global carbon emissions to absolute zero by collocating routers and servers
with renewable energy sites and using advanced data replication and
re-routing techniques across optical networks.  If the ICT industry alone
produces 10% of the global carbon emissions this alone can have significant
impact

(b) Developing societal applications that promote use of the Internet as an
alternate to carbon generating activities such as tele-commuting, distance
learning, etc as outlined below

(c) Deploying "bits and bandwidth for carbon" trading programs as an
alternate strategy to carbon taxes, cap and trade and/or carbon offsets as
for example in the green broadand initiative - http://green-broadband.
Blogspot.com

Thanks to Mr Roques in posting on Lightreading for this pointer--BSA]



Lightreading:  The future of the Internet and Global Warming

http://www.internetevolution.com/messages.asp?piddl_msgthreadid=178018&piddl
_msgid=151707#msg_151707



Study: High-speed Internet helps cool the planet
http://www.news.com/8301-11128_3-9832021-54.html

 
Tempted to obsess over how another personal habit helps or hurts the Earth?
Keep surfing with cable or DSL and you might save carbons in the process,
according to the American Consumer Institute. 

The world would be spared 1 billion tons of greenhouse gases within a decade
if broadband Internet access were pervasive, the group's report (PDF)
concluded in October.

Broadband is available to 95 percent of U.S. households but active in only
half of them, the study said, noting that near-universal adoption of
high-speed Internet would cut the equivalent of 11 percent of oil imports to
the United States each year. 

How would faster downloads and Web page loads curb the annual flow of
globe-warming gases, and by how much? According to the report:

Telecommuting, a "zero emission" practice, eliminates office space and car
commutes: 588 million tons. 
E-commerce cuts the need for warehouses and long-distance shipping: 206
million tons. 
Widespread teleconferencing could bring one-tenth of all flights to a halt:
200 million tons. 
Downloading music, movies, newspapers, and books saves packaging, paper, and
shipping: 67 million tons. 

The Department of Energy estimates that the nation's emissions of carbon
dioxide alone total 8 billion tons each year. 

A study released and funded by a major Australian telecom company in October
also suggested that broader use of broadband could cut that country's
carbons by 5 percent by 2015. 

All it would take is for more people to use software to monitor shipping
schedules, cut the flow of power to dormant gadgets and so forth, the study
said. 

[...]

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those  of the CANARIE board or management.



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