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Should Transport include communications, or should that be separate?
Either way, I would argue that the issue of communications should be on the Transition agenda. The internet costs something like 2 or 3% of all global CO2 emissions, so it is a costly service to run. Also, telecoms is clearly vital in enabling us to talk to each other and develop stuff like transition towns projects. Should we be discussing issues like distributed hosting, the benefits of next generation fibre over copper networks (see www.colnevalleyfibre.net to get involved in the local project on that), green IT, etc.?
I think it's a critical part of the picture, you may differ...
Regards
Graham
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I hope that in todays current economic climate that issues like the environment are not put on the back burner.
Now should be the time to be developing products to have a longer lifespan and with a lower impact on the environment.
Do you have any ideas for projects to do with creating greener communications?
As noted in my post above I am working to promote a community owned next generation fibre network for the Colne Valley (and other rural communities).
As well as being greener than the existing and increasingly obsolete copper telecoms networks, fibre offer such a massive improvement in speed and quality over current broadband that I believe it will have a significant impact on reducing the use of cars and buses, especially for local journeys - which make up a large percentage of all traffic in the valley.
Therefore i see it as part of the solution. Users of email and websites such as this one need to be aware of the significant cost in energy and emissions terms of running mail and web servers, and we should be looking initially to using greener hosting providers, and in the longer term of considering local 'transition' data centres, micro facilities aimed at serving local needs.
Anyone fancy partnering in setting one up? Get in touch.