On Fri, Jul 26, 2019 at 07:17:47AM -0400, Keith Moore wrote: > Maybe. The Internet also consumes a lot of power, both directly (routers, > servers, etc.) and via things enabled by the Internet (e.g. bitcoin; and > people keep PCs on now that we have constant connectivity, whereas they used > to turn them off). Without a detailed analysis, I see no reason to be > confident that there's an overall savings in carbon. See Brians URL. 14% for the whole network vs. whats connected to it. Of course we are burning a lot more oil now with cars than with horse carriages, but you are still free to become Amisch. Just don't rely on modern medicine when you are sick or anything else that could have been created only with more modern forms of transportation and communication than just horse cariages. Driving to work and back 20 miles (which for US conditions is darn short), let's say 1Kw ~ 1 gallon on my car which is about 5KwH from a simple generator. vs. working from home through the Internet. My notebook uses maybe 10W/h. Building and upkeep of highway and cars vs. the metro IP network would be a lot more numbers to compare, but IMHO an easy win for the IP network. > (Whether there's an overall benefit to the public, given all of the issues > surrounding privacy and political manipulation, might also be up for > question. I like having easy access to information and goods and services, > don't like that nearly everyone's phone and computer is now an eavesdropping > device.) Now you're jumping from energy consumption to privacy. I can play the same game to argue we should revert from current currency systems to shells for trade. > However, I don't think "shaming" helps, for much of anything. I think > "shaming" can result in a decrease of awareness. It promotes denial and > distraction away from other issues that might be worse or more deserving of > attention. Not only that. The shaming approach is typically ignoring to look at how to minimize the negatives without considering the positives or how the proposed change will impact them. > It's easy to look at the carbon cost of a single transcontinental airplane > flight (or of a few flights for IETF) and think "that's too much". But the > best way to reduce one's total carbon generation might be, for example, to > reduce the number of less distant flights one takes in a year. For > instance, travel by train, when that option is available. Save the > carbon-generation for the trips that really matter. Excess money will always find a way to abuse resources. Yes, massive societal change is the only way to preserve resources, but that is going to take a very long time and we first have to figure out how to create a just society when human labor at large becomes less necessary/valuable. Toerless > But focusing entirely on carbon generation seems likely to result in the > wrong kind of optimization. Sure, we could generate 1/3 less carbon if we > only met 2 times per year. Just think of how much carbon we'd save if we > never met at all! And it would be entirely "fair" too, since nobody would > be excluded because of inability to travel. Of course there are other > barriers to effective participation in IETF. For instance it helps to know > people... > > > I'd rather see us focus on how we do our work, to see above all how much of > our output is actually useful, whether we're working effectively not only in > person but also via email. If working more effectively would let us > complete a WG's work in 1/2 the time, all other things being equal, each WG > would consume 1/2 the carbon. We might still meet 3 times a year (or not) > but get more useful work done. > > Or it might be that IETF would be more useful to the Internet community if > it produced fewer RFCs (each of more value) than we do now. > > Keith > -- --- tte@xxxxxxxxx
