Jacob Hoffman-Andrews <jsha@xxxxxxx> wrote:
>> the Internet has been the biggest reducer of energy
>> that i could think of in comparison of equivalent alternatives.
>> For the whole planet for the last few decades.
>>
>> Email/online-group-communications vs. transporting physical equivalents,
>> video conferencing, Home office, Telecommuning vs. train, plane automobiles
>> and ships ?
> If online communications were reducing the need for air travel, we would
> expect to see a significant decrease in air travel since 2000. Instead:
> https://www.iea.org/tcep/transport/aviation/
> Demand for air transport has more than doubled since 2000, and demand
This page does not, unfornately tell us why people are travelling more.
It could be fewer people travelling a lot more, it could be more short-haul
flights. Anecdotally, I think a lot of it is increased travel for pleasure,
and I think that the Internet *did* cause that, because it's so much easier
to find out about other places and make plans. And the cost per flight is
lower.
The other question is, could there be, due to the Internet, a lot more people
who are collaborating over distance, and therefore occasionally needing to
meet up in person. I think so. One can imagine a collaboration/kilogram-CO2
chart of some kind.
> I agree that online collaboration has the *potential* to reduce
> emissions. However, it is not fulfilling that potential. That's why we
> need to walk the talk and demonstrate how to collaborate effectively
> online, so other industries can adopt our methods and tools.
I agree completely.
And, it goes beyond that: we have increasing number of WG meeting conflicts,
because we are no longer so siloed as we were 25 years ago when I started.
So in order to accomodate the cross-area work, we need to stretch our "week"
out. Making the physical meeting longer isn't going to work, so we need
to do it online.
(And, we need to lead people back towards useful non-HTML emails,
where content matters instead of form, and quoting is sensibly done.
*WE* know how to do email collaboration, the LookOut people don't.
Wes has started writing in Markdown...)
--
] Never tell me the odds! | ipv6 mesh networks [
] Michael Richardson, Sandelman Software Works | network architect [
] mcr@xxxxxxxxxxxx http://www.sandelman.ca/ | ruby on rails [
--
Michael Richardson <mcr+IETF@xxxxxxxxxxxx>, Sandelman Software Works
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