Green IT/Introduction

Introduction to agriculture IT

Agricultural IT is the study and practice of using computers and telecommunications in a way which maximises positive environmental benefit and minimises negative impact. Energy efficiency of equipment is a major concern of Green ICT, but also the energy embodied in the equipment and the use of materials and how they are recycled. Green ICT seeks to guide technological implementation using accepted management practises, in support of business interaction.

GREEN ICT- Green ICT is an emerging discipline philosophically centred on a concern for sustainable development and seeks ways to implement that through ICT systems. Beyond the direct environmental impact of the equipment, the way it can be used to reduce the adverse impact of other systems is of concern. Typically ways to use ICT to reduce materials and energy, such as by replacing travel with electronic communications, is a consideration.

Effects, both negative and positive of ICT--

Keep in mind that ICT is only a business enabler in most organisations. How much do ICT professionals need to know about the business aims of the organisation to help with green ICT? Does anyone in the organisation know what the many components of the ICT system of the organisation (servers, application, network maintenance, email) are and how these contribute to the organisation's carbon footprint and waste material contribution? The organisation might currently measure its ICT operation in terms of dollars spent, person hours of effort, lines of code generated, Gflops or GBytes of storage.

Understanding climate science

Sustainability includes social, economic and environmental concerns. A good example of this are the issues around Climate Change, and Global Warming, specifically with an expected long-term significant increase in the average temperature around the world. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has reported that during the 20th Century, the temperature has been increasing due to rising greenhouse gas concentrations. This is most likely due to human activity ("anthropogenic").

The major anthropogenic greenhouse gas is carbon dioxide (CO₂), with concentrations increasing due to burning fossil fuels and deforestation.Most relevant to ICT is the burning of fossil fuels such as coal, oil and natural gas in electricity power stations to generate electricity, which is then used to power computers and telecommunications.

Effects

An increase in average global temperatures is expected to cause the retreat of glaciers, reduction in Arctic ice, and a rise in sea level, resulting in flooding. It is also expected to result in a change in regional weather patterns, with rain (precipitation) increased in some areas and reduced in others and an increase in storms (extreme weather events). This is likely to result in changes in agriculture, water supply and extinctions.

Responses

The two major responses to global warming are to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to adjust human activities to accommodate it. The primary international agreement on combating global warming is the Kyoto Protocol, which aims to stabilise greenhouse gas concentrations. The primary method envisaged for implementation of the treaty is emissions trading, with companies purchasing credits to emit in a market, within a limit set by government.

Read now

ACS Policy Statement on Green ICT (August 2007). Wikipedia entry for Green computing Chapter 2 "Understanding climate science", of the Garnaut Climate Change Review Final Report, Commonwealth of Australia 2008.

From your reading, be sure you can answer the questions;

1. What are the strengths and weakness of Green ICT?
2. What are the differences between the ACS Policy statement and the Wikipedia entry's approach to Green ICT? Did the ACS address everything to do with Green ICT? What did they emphasise? Why do you think they did this?
3. What are the main areas for Green ICT? Are they mutually supportive, or are there trade-offs? For example installing new efficient computers may increase the amount of hazardous waste generated from the scrapped computers.

Origin

The course was originally designed by User:Tom Worthington for the the Australian Computer Society. The course notes are available in the book Green Technology Strategies: Using computers and telecommunications to reduce carbon emissions (2009 ISBN 978-0-9806201-3-9).

The course is run as Green Technology Strategies in the Computer Professional Education Program, Australian Computer Society (first run as "Green ICT Strategies" in February 2009) and Green Information Technology Strategies (COMP7310), in the Graduate Studies Select program, Australian National University (first run as "Green ICT Strategies", July 2009).

Links

Topic:Green IT