Your Computer Is Killing the Planet

Gavin Starks, the CEO of Amee, shocks us all in a presentation at Activate 09 by claiming that a 2.5kg laptop computer produces 460kg of CO2.  The average annual emmission of C)2 for a human being is 2 tonnes.  So people like us are generating a quarter of that just by using a computer.

Amee is abusiness that aims to produce a carbon footprint of everything on earth, to build what they call environmental intelligence into evrything.  The scary prediction is that we are heading towards “peak consumption” on all our ebergy resources.  MIT has noted that surface warming is accelerating to a level which makes mass extinction a real possibility.  The warming willeventually blow the atmosphere away and Earth will turn into a planet like Venus.

On the basis of the old adage that if you can’t measure it you can’t manage it, Amee aims to make carbon data transparent.  Their metering tools will helps government and business to measure their energy identity.  The energy identity of an individual or a business or a nation is more important than digital identity.

In the UK an average person produces 10 tonnes of CO2.  In the US it’s 20 tonnes.  For the planet to survive the sustainable level is 2 tonnes.

 

Related articles by Zemanta

• CO2 warning: 3.6tn tonnes and counting (guardian.co.uk)