On Sat, Feb 28, 2009 at 3:34 PM, Nick David Wright <[email protected]> wrote: <snip> > A book may cost more in energy terms to produce. But can that possibly be > more than all the energy needed to produce and maintain all the > infrastructure needed for e-books in perpetuity? <snip>
I think you've hit upon something here: The question is not merely what is the ~true~ environmental cost of e-books (don't forget to include negative externalities) but how long will this technology be viable? Will it "catch on" and be standardized and be with us for decades or even centuries? Or, in a couple of years will it be obsolete? Knowing the electronics industry "the next thing" will be on the market in a few years (or less), it will be completely incompatible with current e-book technology, and millions of e-books (and all their batteries!) will start filling landfill sites around the world. Remember when someone said that computers were going to be the end of paper? Truth is that computers have led to more paper consumption than ever. Who knew that printers would end up so cheap? What scares me is the unforeseen and unpredictable consequences of technology - we know what we're dealing with in books, we don't with e-books. cheers, frank -- "Sharpness is a bourgeois concept." -Henri Cartier-Bresson -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
