Dear all,
A very interesting, relevant topic.
Jon, I'm personally very appreciative of your thoughts below for reasons
you'll well understand, but I have to say I don't think they are in the
same arena as the green-ness that Matthew was talking about. Just
because ecology and economy both employ the term "sustainable" doesn't
mean they are talking about the same thing, and just because you talk
about "the ecology of the internet" doesn't mean that the two distinct
meanings you could understand for that term become interchangeable.
Sustainability in the digital economy (broadly speaking) is not the same
as sustainability in natural resources. That's no reason not to expand
the discussion from the "literal" issue, but let's not lose sight of the
fact that this literal green concern is the responsibility of the
cultural sector as much as anyone - and it's not news, as your own
article indicates.
On the subject of Matthew's initial query about the energy consumption
of the Internet, I was recently talking to a friend engaged in planning
for the energy needs of a large international bank's server farms and
the figures were mind-boggling. The energy cost of a single processor
quite soon exceeds the cost of the processor itself (IIRC) and certainly
using multi-core processors can yield big savings, perhaps avoiding the
need to build their own power station(!). I would suggest that a good
way of overestimating the energetic cost of your own websites is to take
your annual hosting costs and ask how much electricity that would buy.
OK, you may buy a unit of juice at a different price from Easynet or
whoever, but equally you are paying them for more than just the energy
costs of hosting your site. Presumably some of the costs are passed on
to other suppliers, perhaps providing access to the backbone, which will
be charging for their energy costs too. My guess is that your annual
cost would purchase much more energy than your sites use. If you are
hosting fancy stuff rather than simple HTML your costs may be
considerably higher, too, although the energetic costs of serving up the
same quantity of pages may not be proportionately higher (though a bit).
For our part, this calculation would suggest that serving up our web
sites consumes (up to) several times the energy that my home uses each
year. OK this is clearly nonsense, but it's a baseline to which we can
compare, say, the financial and energetic cost of maintaining a gallery,
a learning suite etc. If our virtual presences reduce the need for
costly physical activities or facilities perhaps we can consider that
some sort of offset? Although, given that we've spent quite a bit of
effort over the last decade trying to show that we won't lose "real"
visitors if we make it possible to experience some of what we offer
remotely, it might not seem that attractive to have to argue that energy
is saved by people that no longer have to come to our museums to get
what they need...
And Jon, can I say again that your remarks on digital sustainability are
nevertheless very interesting to me?
Cheers, Jeremy
Jeremy Ottevanger
Web Developer, Museum Systems Team
Museum of London Group
46 Eagle Wharf Road
London. N1 7ED
Tel: 020 7410 2207
Fax: 020 7600 1058
Email: [log in to unmask]
www.museumoflondon.org.uk
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From: Museums Computer Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
Jon Pratty
Sent: 14 February 2007 10:32
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [MCG] A greener internet?
Matthew, Nick, Dan et al
Matthew's email zeros in neatly on a point that's been one of my
enthusiasms for a few years - the ecology of the internet - but it
misses the point, if I may politely interject.
For some time I've been concerned with the literal issues of
'green-ness' and technology. A while back I wrote about how the European
WEEE regulations might mean the end of the line for the online retail
tech industry -
http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/analysis/2132031/industry-faces-toxic-shock
-2. If you look at the date on the article you'll see how little
progress has been made in the last five years!
But more importantly I think it's the wider meanings of 'sustainability'
that should concern us in the cultural sector, with the emphasis on how
we work, how we fund that work, and how we plan and make strategies in
the wider scheme of things.
For me, sustainability in the digital world means:
a) making sure we don't duplicate work being done elsewhere, or nearby,
or by others better placed to do the work.
b) it means building sites in simple, easily maintainable open source
cms that most can work on cheaply.
c) It means trying to devise publishing models that can be sustained,
developed and networked in ways that mean they thrive and bring benefits
for all
d) It means building digital cultural infrastructure that is widely
supported, easily understood and brings connection to mass audiences
(inwards and outwards) for every cultural venue.
e) It means transferring the skills to publish simply to as many in the
sector as possible
I think a better approach to internet ecology ought to make it possible
for all cultural participators (small museums, galleries, libraries,
archives, artists, community groups etc.) to expect digital
representation as a fundamental right.
These are the things we need to consider as 'green' issues for our
sector, rather than carbon offsetting and so on.
Jon Pratty
Editor
[log in to unmask]
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