Automattician, Green, humanist, vegan
Climate change may not seem like an issue that should concern web developers, but the truth is that our work does have a carbon footprint, and it’s about time we started to think about that.
By Jack Lenox, published by Smashing Magazine on 15 January 2019
Continue reading “How improving website performance can help save the planet”This week, I managed to get no further than one minute and 25 seconds into this week’s episode of This Week (is that enough “this weeks”?), before Andrew Neil had me back on the BBC’s complaints site.
Continue reading “Andrew Neil rubbishes scientific consensus in first minutes of This Week”
I’m currently reading Simon L. Lewis and Mark A. Maslin’s The Human Planet: How We Created the Anthropocene. In the first couple of chapters, the authors lay down some history of the human interpretation of climate change. I find it mind-blowing that we understood our ability to affect this planet’s climate through our activities, and that we were discussing it, more than 200 years ago. Geologists like Thomas Jenkyn and enlightenment giant, George-Louis Leclerc (better known as the Comte de Buffon) both wrote and gave lectures on the topic.
Continue reading “The Human Planet: How We Created the Anthropocene”
Over the past six months, I’ve become increasingly interested in the topic of web sustainability. The carbon footprint of the Internet was not something I used to give much thought to, which is surprising considering my interest in environmental issues and the fact that my profession is web-based.
Today marks the opening of the Kongernes Nordsjælland (Kings of North Zealand) National Park, comprising 5,000sq km of forest and 60sq km of lakes as well as a number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
Continue reading “Reason to be cheerful: Denmark gets a new national park today”
I was very happy to finally make it to Carcassonne last week. It has been on my list since reading Kate Mosse’s Labyrinth over a decade ago. As we got our first glimpse of the spectacular citadel, we noticed something a bit odd! Gaudy yellow stripes streaked across the city walls and towers.
“Please think about the environment before printing this email.” It’s a request many of us are probably familiar with. It seems reasonable, but it also implies that an email, and by association the web, is a green medium. Sadly, this isn’t exactly true. What if I told you that the Internet is the largest coal-fired machine in the world?
