Leadership is something that is never in large supply. To be a leader, you have to see things that others don't see; so, almost by definition, there just aren't a lot of leaders around at any given moment.That's too bad, because what we really need right now in IT is people who can take the green football and run with it. It's really getting down to the time where it's no more business as usual; things are changing, and if you don't change, well, someone else will make you change. And that someone else is going to be the government. In a report commissioned by the UK Government and headed by ex-Chief Economist of the World Bank Nicholas Stern, it was estimated that approximately 20 percent of all economic activity is going to vanish due to man made global warming. Politicans, for all the evil they might do, just aren't going to let that happen; they are going to prevent it by doing what they do best, which is regulate the tarnish out the industries that are causing the problem. And that industry, front and center, is IT.
WEEE and RoHS are just the beginning on this one. Politicans are going to look at numbers like these, where 30 percent of the UK power is going towards running ofice equipment and they are going to act, and not in a slow way. In like a punitive way, a way that lets them tax the tarnish out of business and lets the money flow into public coffers. And I promise you, they don't take prisoners, don't care if you go bankrupt or not.
1 comment:
Hi Mark. I am still wading through the Stern report, trying to digest all its implications, especially for my own area of obsession -- er, expertise LOL -- Latin America & the Caribbean. One thing I come away with is that this may be the last nail in the coffin of the "climate skeptics" -- an economist of the stature of Stern will be very difficult for them to counter. A second thing I come away with is the same as you -- alot more, much much more, needs to be done to drastically improve energy conservation and energy efficiency, especially in the IT & electronics fields. I know the industry has already done some luadable things in this area, but it clearly is not enough and not fast enough. They need to move soon and move dramatically if they want to avoid the fate you suggest.
Keep up the good work! I very much enjoy your blog. I'm learning just how much more I need to learn about "green computing."
Best Regards,
Keith
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