The New York Times has an article on the impact of gas prices on e-commerce.
To Save Gas, Shoppers Stay Home and Click http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/19/business/19shop.html?ref=technology Robert makes a very important point -- many of the tips about sustainability don't take into account the total cost of ownership and often neglect to include cost like IT infrastructure or other hidden costs. I'm work at a company that makes architectural software and have discovered that "being green" is often very complex with many interactions between actions, materials, and energy. When you buy a vehicle, for example, you have to consider gas mileage, but also the recyclability of the materials in the green calculation. A high mileage car with a lot of exotic materials may not be a recycleable as a big old pickup truck so in the long run, you will need to consider the total energy costs including the energy to replace that vehicle and recycle the old one. Chauncey On Fri, Jul 18, 2008 at 2:47 PM, Robert Reimann <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > One piece of the energy equation that people don't always take into account > with online services is the cost of the IT infrastructure required to do > business. Giant server farms like Amazon's or Google's require enormous > amounts of power to run and keep cool. There's a reason why the Pacific NW > is a home to many of these server farms: Washington state is 80% powered by > hydroelectricity, and Idaho uses 100% hydro power. > > Robert. > > On Wed, Jul 16, 2008 at 11:40 AM, Angel Anderson < > [EMAIL PROTECTED]> > wrote: > > > Thank you all for the insightful comments. I've forwarded your remarks > to > > my writer friend who is most appreciative. Like many questions we pose > in > > this discussion list, the answer is "it depends." We'll have to wait and > > see > > how the complex web of factors plays out in the global economy but the > > times > > they are a-changin'. > > Pauric, thanks for sharing Kunstler's TED talk. I want to be a good > citizen > > in this brave new world ;-) > > > > > -- > Robert Reimann > IxDA Seattle > > Associate Creative Director > frog design > Seattle, WA > ________________________________________________________________ > Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! > To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe > List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines > List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help > ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
