Monthly Archive for December, 2007

Microsoft Gets Serious About Environment, Appoints Czar.

Published
by
monkchips
on December 21, 2007
in Uncategorized
. 1 Comment

It was only a couple of months ago that I dinged Microsoft for not taking Green issues seriously enough in a blog titled Where is Microsoft’s Green Story? Well its been in the hopper for a while, but I wanted to make sure I credited Microsoft with getting its act together before the end of the year. There is some rather splendid news to report.

Rob Bernard has been appointed to the role of Chief Environmental Strategist for Microsoft. This is a new role for the company, and Rob will be responsible for defining and implementing a global strategy for the company’s environmental efforts. Rob will be reporting to Scott Charney.

Microsoft created this new role to assess the company’s environmental impact and opportunities at all levels, including: working with product groups to create technology innovations in software and hardware that can help enable customers to minimize their impact on the environment, assuring responsible business practices that work to reduce the company’s direct and indirect environmental impact, and working with partners in industry, government and non-government to engage on global environmental issues.

Rob has held various positions during his 10 year career at Microsoft; most recently he was general manager for Microsoft’s Developer and Platform Evangelism team where he managed relationships with over 100 of the world’s largest Independent Software Vendors.

Anyone that doubts commitment should look at who has been appointed. GM of developer evangelism is a huge deal at Microsoft. This is far from a “ticklist” appointment. I will be talking to Rob soon, and will let you know what his plans are.

 

Happy Christmas Microsoft! Thanks for taking this seriously. We appreciate the contributions you’re going to make.

by-sa

AMEE - The World’s Energy Meter

Published
by
monkchips
on December 14, 2007
in Uncategorized
. 0 Comments

Sometimes you have to pimp something, just because its great to know you’ve been involved. The slogan above, which I helped with, has now been formally adopted by AMEE, an organisation I have written about before here.  So what is the news? Momentum, and an appearance at next year’s ETech.

If all the energy data in the world were accessible, what would you build?

The Climate Change agenda has created an imperative to measure the energy profile of everything. As $trillions flow into re-inventing how we consume, we have a unique opportunity to start with open data and open systems. AMEE (http://www.amee.cc) is an open aggregation platform for energy and CO2 data, algorithms and transactions. We aim to dramatically accelerate change, because we need to.

AMEE is a neutral aggregator of reliable carbon data, for use by commercial and noncommercial groups. Active users include: the UK Government, Google, Morgan Stanley and The Royal Society for the Arts.

Developer API keys are available, and we’ll be showing some of the applications.

Nice One Gavin. I hope I am there to see you present.

In other conference news I am pleased to report that GeeKyoto has a great idea for a London green geek unconference thingie.

Since this post is on geeKyoto any theme would be related to the topic of climate change, sustainability and other technical and green issues.

So I would like to ‘announce’ geekGreen2008. Announce in the sense that here is an idea, here are my thoughts on what such a conference could be.

Here is the pitch:

geekGreen2008 - radical ideas and stories in the time of climate change.

Venue: Well to be decided and has lots of dependancies but it is going to be UK based, at least for the first (only?) one. My initial take was for London. Interesting2007 was held at the Conway Hall in Holborn. The main theatre can hold 300 people and it has a nice stage. It also has an interesting history. Where else? Well RIBA has been suggested as has the ICA, and maybe somewhere like the BFI on the South Bank has some interesting spaces. In fact the South Bank would be interesting because Cape Farewell are currently in residence there and Cape Farewell is a project that I would love to see a part of this.

Outside of London though still has possibilities. Of course the ideal location would be the Eden Project in Cornwall, though somewhere like the Centre for Alternative Technology would also be a possibility.

So there you have it. No date or location decided yet but I want to play for sure. What about you? Go sign up at Mark’s blog. Make a contribution.

Picturecredit jessiebarber

by-sa

On Small Changes, Small Cars, Tax and Pollution

Published
by
joe@movementdesign.org
on December 14, 2007
in Europe, UK, automotive, carbon, footprint, global warming, sustainability, transportation and travel
. 1 Comment

It’s fair to say that encouraging people to change their behaviour in small ways can have a big impact - cumulatively - on reducing carbon footprints and environmental impact in the long-term.

But how Governments and authorities manage and cajole the public to change personal behaviour can be a problematic process – and something that’s difficult to get right. One obvious avenue available is to incentivise change by introducing tax-breaks on ‘environmentally friendly’ products and services, and hiking tax on high-polluters. That seems to be the idea behind planned changes to the Congestion charge policy in London, which - rightly or wrongly - from next year, is being turned into an environmental charge based on carbon dioxide emissions from cars.

You can read more about it in detail here, but in short, the plan is that whereas currently nearly everyone pays £8 per day, by 2009, cars which emit more than 225 g/km of CO2 will be charged £25 ($50) a day to drive into central London. Ouch. But the flip side - the ‘tax-break’ - is that if you drive a car that emits less than 120g/km of CO2, then access is free. The idea is to move people from gas-guzzlers to eco-friendly fuel-sippers, and thus see CO2 levels in the city fall. Nothing wrong with that you might think, but there’s a potential flaw…

Sales of these small, ‘sub-120g/km’ cars are soaring across the south-east of England. A new report by CEBR (report not available openly) suggests that this ‘environmentally-driven’ policy could actually end up causing CO2 levels to rise. That’s because it’s predicted the changed system will have a net result of up to 10,000 extra cars a day entering central London. And that can only lead to an increase in congestion, and a slow down in traffic speeds. As anyone who understands the internal combustion process will tell you, the problem with (even highly efficient, and small) engines, is that they’re at their least efficient when the car is sat stationary or moving at low speeds. So despite the fact that most of these additional cars will be classified as ‘environmentally friendly’ and driving around congestion charge-free, the extra traffic and congestion they create could mean CO2 levels actually rise.

Kit like this will unsurprisingly fall into the £25-a-day bracket come next year

You will, doubtless, be surprised to hear that kit like this will cost £25-a-day to drive in central London come next year…

Whether the report’s predictions prove true, only time will tell. One potential caveat to consider is that it was commissioned by Land Rover – who aren’t exactly known for their small cars (in fact, every vehicle they currently sell falls into the £25-a-day category). In the auto-industry, nothing is ever quite as black and white as it first seems… but there’s plenty of support for it’s predictions in the form of academics for instance, who have no reason for bias.

The big questions it begs, is how governments, authorities and legislators drive a process of adoption for new, more environmentally friendly products and technologies, without having the entire process back-fire on them at ground level? The message they’re putting out to people here is ‘do this, and because you’re helping save the planet, we’ll reward you’ – but in fact, that ‘reward’ might end up having quite the opposite effect on the planet’s health. Don’t ‘reward’ people’s for changing their behaviour, and they’ve no reason to change. So the carrot-stick approach is difficult. I suspect this policy might go down in history as being one of those top-down processes, that on paper looked great - but which back-fired terribly on the ground by having precisely the opposite impact to what was originally intended. Another case which will show the need for grass-roots level innovation and adoption, rather than top-down? I think so.

by-sa

Please Sign This Petition ASAP: Governments WTF?

Published
by
monkchips
on December 12, 2007
in Uncategorized
. 0 Comments

Why is it the only people that don’t seem to get the urgency of the situation are our elected (so you don’t count Mr Brown) leaders? Avaaz is a lobbying group, and this is a good one to raise.

Climate negotiations in Bali are in crisis. Things were looking good till now: near-consensus on a delicate deal, including 2020 targets for rich countries, in return for which China and the developing world would do their part over time. IPCC scientists have said such targets are needed to prevent catastrophe. But Japan, the US and Canada are banding together to wreck the deal, and the rest of the world is starting to waver…

We can’t let three stubborn governments throw away the planet’s future. We have until the end of Friday to do everything we can. Please sign our emergency global petition below — we’ll deliver it through stunts at the summit, a full-page ad in the Financial Times in Asia, and directly to country delegates to stiffen their nerve against any bad compromise. Add your name to the campaign below now!

Please just go sign the petition. Remember: small things can make a difference, when you add them up. We need to Step it Up folks.

by-sa

An A/C Case Study: Greening the Cork Internet Exchange

Published
by
monkchips
on December 7, 2007
in Uncategorized
. 2 Comments

Tom Raftery is a social media rock star and all-round good egg. This blog provides a really nice in-depth look at the cooling strategies used by the Cork Internet Exchange, a project he has been closely involved in. Normally GreenMonk echews hardcore green data center stuff, but this one caught my eye because it was driven by CIX, rather than by a big vendor agenda. There is plenty of good information and data in there if you’re thinking about cooling strategies. Air-conditioning is one of the major costs in a data center yet its sometimes ignored in favour of trying to make servers cooler. Get the air-con right though and you can cut costs and carbon too.

Its also a great grassroots story because it takes account of the fact its often fecking cold in Ireland. Why spend money on cooling if its cold outside? The basic strategy:

  1. Utilise free cooling.
  2. Maximise chilled water temperature.
  3. Eliminate water mixing.
  4. Eliminate air mixing.
  5. Utilise low resistance slow speed air paths.
  6. Minimise humidification.

More from Dennis here.

Note to Tom - please sort out your diagrams though, mate, the links are 404ing.

by-sa

carbonrally: Small actions, Big Impact

Published
by
monkchips
on December 6, 2007
in Uncategorized
. 0 Comments

i just came across this website, via dominic campbell, and its pretty much a perfect exemplar of the GreenMonk mindset. Its upbeat, its community-oriented, and it clearly demonstrates that even small changes can make a difference.

How does it work?

The idea is to sign up to challenges, as simple as for instance making sure your car tyres are properly pumped up, and then see that others are doing the same thing, then aggregating the relevant data.

For example:

209 people have reduced CO2 emissions by 1.32 tons by completing this challenge so far. That’s equal to turning off the electricity of 1 home for about 1 month!

You can then hook up with others, create teams, or compete to be the most carbon-busting carbon buster. Very cool all around. Except its US only…. :-(

by-sa