Cebit: “IT greens” versus “Green IT”
Our toxics campaigner Yannick Vicaire wrote up his view on the “Green IT” at Cebit. Read what he says about the tactics of IT managers not to take on responsibility.
It’s understood, “Green IT” in Cebit is all about energy efficiency, an easy first step to take for this industry that kept ignoring the issue for decades. Yet, looking at those brilliant “bla” quotes below shows that even this effort is not taken so willingly by the IT industry.
“ICT covers two percent of the global energy consumption. We can work to halve it to 1%, but the priority is to work to decrease the remaining 98 percent,” said Francesco Serafini, vice-president of Hewlett Packard in the EMEA region.“The real challenge is to address heavy energy consumers. ICT can help. It is indeed a typical anti-inflationary industry that with time gives you more for less. But the real problem is to cut heavy consumption,” argued Intel chairman Craig Barrett.
Let me translate: “don’t pick on us cos’ we can save the world”, they claim. I’d like to challenge this here.
My fellow climate campaigners launched yesterday a campaign on cars. Even the worst greenwashing tycoons of the car industry would not argue “leave us alone because we can transport people”. So, no doubt that computers can compute and help us find smart solutions to a lot of problems including increase energy efficiency of other industrial sectors – that’s just what they’re made for. But just as the car industry has to, the IT industry must focus on its own environmental burden. And what about me? Should working for Greenpeace allow me not to question my own practises?
Now I’d like to take a step further back. Are those claims from HP’s Serafini and Intel’s Barrett even true? Partly only. Electronics can compute for the best as much as they can for the worse. Yes, they can help deal with climate change, provide tools for surgery or logistics, but what about their contribution to military madness or social control? Electronics can open the doors for a lot of dirty polluting business that would not have been possible without them – how could you run a nuke power plant without electronics - and electronics can save lives. Who knows what a technology is gonna be used for? I’m not challenging innovation itself but just this optimistic attitude that only good will come out of it.
Back to my “car” comparison. Have you ever heard of the counter-productivity of a technology? In the 70’s, Ivan Illitch developed that critical concept: a technology designed for a purpose may eventually deliver the opposite outcome. Here is an example of controversial findings from Illitch: over a lifetime, the speed of a car is slower than that of a bicycle. Why that? Because of all the time lost in traffic jam and spent in earning money to buy, fuel and repair your car. Divide the distance by those not accounted times and you find a ridiculous speed, social thinker Illich says. Of course, it doesn’t mean that your car was not useful occasionally, it’s just a way of challenging the pretentiously efficiency of technical progress. Thus, although ICT is all about intelligence and dematerialisation, it creates a material and energy consumption nightmare from mining to waste issues, as illustrated by our wonderful stand at Cebit.
The truth is always complex and the claims of the industry managers up there are not only shocking, they are also nothing but pure speculations.
Comments
Every single day we are bombarded with new stories of something being eco-friendly. But can we really make eco-friendly goods? Or are we talking about eco-friendlier? Everything has an impact on the environment. Some just more than others. So why do we insist that some things are eco-friendly and others not. Is it not just a case of eco-friendlier than the alternative? Is a Prius eco-friendly? No. You won’t suck on the exhaust pipe. It is just better than the alternative. More on this at my blog in http://angryafrican.wordpress.com/2008/02/17/make-it-better-how-friendly-is-eco-friendly/
Posted by: Angry African | March 9, 2008 4:17 AM
If you want to find out how to make consumer electronics/computers really environmentally friendly without having to rely on the reluctant co-operation of the manufacturers, have a look at my blog http://www.trade2save.com/blog/our-mission-statement/
It's the throw away society and our love to buy new and buy often that's the problem.
Posted by: chriswhittome | March 18, 2008 10:35 PM