[Stoves] Break Even Ecological Footprint

[Josh Kearns]

You make a good point about the Ecological Footprint of the internet and
associated technology.

I think terms like "wireless" and "the cloud" can be misleading by
suggesting that these things are really diaphanous and ethereal, and so
don't place any demands on energy and resources, waste assimilation
capacity or society in general.

In reality, the internet and associated technology has a huge environmental
impact, through the energy required to run server farms, to the thousands
of miles of fiber optic cables ringing the continents, to the profusion of
essentially throw-away devices such as mobile phones, tablets, laptops,
etc., and the essentially slave labor used to mine the rare ores and crank
out the device in factories.

The internet is a complex system and as such is very brittle and
vulnerable. For example, it requires a dependable electric grid, and
relative harmony and cooperation among nation states - factors that we
probably shouldn't take for granted to continue in perpetuity.

We tend to believe, it seems, that the internet will always be with us (and
always getting better and better with the release of the next iPad, etc.),
but I'm don't think we can count on that.

Has anyone though about the best ways to secure repositories for all of
this valuable research and experience with stoves, biochar, etc. if we
don't want to bank on "the cloud" being a permanent fixture of human life?

Just some Saturday musings....

Josh



On Sat, Aug 10, 2013 at 9:23 AM, <ajheggie at gmail.com> wrote:

> [Default] On Thu, 8 Aug 2013 09:17:29 -0600,Josh Kearns
> <yeah.yeah.right.on at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >FYI, not related to stoves directly, but perhaps somewhat to stovers who,
> >like me, do a lot of air travel in effort to promote sustainability....
> >
> >
> >
> http://www.resilience.org/stories/2013-08-08/sustainable-development-professionals-does-your-flight-render-your-efforts-futile
>
> A wickedly sensible article Josh. One of the reasons I haven't
> ventured out of GB this last decade to any of the stoves events is the
> very thought that my teaching skills are so deficient I couldn't
> justify the consumption of resources. That and the US visa/entry
> requirements.
>
> The trouble is, as we have recently seen with the banking crisis,
> economies have to grow to sustain our current lifestyles and economic
> activity is dependent on energy use.
>
> Similar to your analysis I just wonder how much electricity is needed
> to sustain the storage of all these posts and webpages yet,
> apparently, we cannot justify a little <4W fan a couple of hours a day
> to run a stove in the most deprived areas.
>
> AJH
>
>
>
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-- 
Josh Kearns
PhD Candidate, Environmental Engineering
University of Colorado-Boulder
Visiting Researcher, North Carolina State University

Director of Science
Aqueous Solutions
www.aqsolutions.org

Mobile: 720 989 3959
Skype: joshkearns
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