NYTimes says Online Publishers are Going Green
posted in General |The headline almost doesn’t make sense, does it? If a company is doing all its publishing online, well, that sounds great - paperfree is better than paperfull, right? The problem is all this wonderful tech providing this wonderful content on the wonderful Internet is using a bunch of high-powered servers in heavily air-conditioned rooms. The bigger the pub, the more servers, and worse yet, the more redundant servers and mirroring servers needed around the world. Yahoo! announced last week they were taking a first step at reducing their environmental impact by going carbon neutral, which is definitely one way to help this rapidly growing problem.
When I read the headline at the New York Times (online) today that “As Environmentalism Grows, Online Publishers Go Green” I was excited to read on. The first paragraph alone was enough to disappoint:
Buoyed by the breakaway success of “An Inconvenient Truth,” the film documentary of Al Gore’s environmental lecture, publishers like The Washington Post, National Geographic and others are increasing their offerings of “green” content, hoping to attract readers and advertising revenues from manufacturers and retailers who are suddenly walking the earth-friendly path.
The entire article is basically about these companies having new columns and subsites about green products. More stuff we can all go out and buy and feel a little better about ourselves because we bought it. On one hand I’m encouraged, seeing big players pay some attention to this space is great. On the other, I’m discouraged, as I’m growing increasingly concerned that everyone’s looking for the “quick fix” to environmental issues, of which there are many, most of which aren’t quickly fixable.
Source: The New York Times