Albert Speer was one of the few Nazis who reflected on what he did and felt some form of guilt. He was Hitler’s architect, and in the later stages of World War II he took over armaments manufacturing and oversaw tremendous increases in production by bringing in new management techniques. He embraced technology. I am… Read More »
The history of technology is about extending and replacing human energy. We are at a point now where increasing amounts of our energy are going to waste because we are using technology out of convenience and laziness rather than for productive motives. The consequences for ourselves and for our planet are dire. There is no… Read More »
The fourth principle of Digital Earth Experience design is to “Delete 90%”. The illusion of cheap storage has encouraged by far the worst hoarding habits in human history. We are drowning in digital crap, and it’s going to get much, much worse. Most organizations haven’t even begun to think how to properly manage the data.… Read More »
The first principle is to not create. Not doing anything with digital is the kindest thing you can do for the environment. The decisions that you make not to create that extra piece of code, that extra piece of content, these are the most important decisions you can make. If you must create then reuse… Read More »
The greatest challenge we have today both in the physical and digital world is waste. It’s not an energy production problem we have. It’s a waste production problem. The defining characteristic of “rich” world culture is profligate waste. We create, for example, so much plastic waste that geologists are seeing a sedimentary layer of plastic… Read More »
“Domination” is Mark Zuckerberg’s favorite word. He illustrates better than most the domineering Tech Bros win-at-all-costs, use-all-means-to-get-to-your-ends approach. From the first time I heard him gush about “community” the hairs on my neck stood up. There was something deeply fake and disturbing going on. This guy is a dictator. From day one, he set up… Read More »
If 50 million websites are actively using Google Analytics, then according to my calculations this could be resulting in 100 million kg of CO2 pollution a year. You’d need to plant 10 million trees to deal with that sort of pollution. Most of these 50 million websites will find out very little by using Google… Read More »
The most substantial pollution from Google Analytics comes from the processing and analysis of the data. Let’s assume that the analytics data from each of the 50 million websites using Google Analytics requires 30 seconds per day of processing from Google servers. These servers tend to be very energy intensive, using from 500 to 1200… Read More »
Every time you access a webpage that is using Google Analytics, about 22 KB of data is sent to Google. If we estimate that there are 500 million pages being accessed every day then that’s about 4 million GB of data per year. We’d need to plant 1,656 trees to deal with the pollution. However,… Read More »
The most dangerous cost is the cost closest to zero. The most dangerous concept is cheap. The cost close to zero easily becomes invisible. We don’t see it so we don’t think it exists, and that makes us consume with abandon, that makes us waste at will. That which is cheap—or, worse still, free—is nearly… Read More »