Morning newspaper, don't they have something better to do?
We love the morning paper but it’s killing the planet
By Stephen Pate, NJN Network, Charlottetown, PEI, Canada, April 20, 2009 with a story from the New York Times
Our habit of reading a morning newspaper is killing the planet. No one has put a number on total carbon emissions from making newsprint, transporting it, printing it, distributing it and filling landfills with it, but it is enormous. We do not need the newspaper anymore. Bill Gates’ dream of a computer on every desk is a reality. In this house there are 8 computers, 2 for every occupant plus 4 cell phones all getting paperless news.
How big could a no-paper world be? Marriott Hotels has decided to stop handing out newspapers to its guests automatically. You can still ask for one. This change will reduce carbon emissions by 10,000 tons annually and save printing 13 million papers annually. Multiply that just by the hotel papers that lie unread outside hotel room doors and you have a forest. Multiply that by the homes that have enough computers so everyone gets the news without printing and we start to save the planet.
I’m going to cancel my subscription today.
orly
I think it’s a fine idea to stop giving the morning paper to every hotel guest, even if they don’t ask for it. But on the other hand is a world as Bill Gate’s dreams of, just a benefit for him but not for the rest of the world or the environment.
To produce a 2 grams memory chip you need 1.7 kg of fossil fuels, chemicals and water. For a whole desktop computer it’s about 290 kg of energy wasted … I simply don’t see how this can save our planet, especially as the technology advances rapidly and people but new computers every 3 years ?
And that’s just the negative, energy-wise side of those machines, not to mention the waste of electricity or the impact they have on health, cuz normally you aren’t exposed to any kind of radiation reading the papers.
I don’t want to praise newspapers here, cuz they, as you pointed out, have their share in destruction … it’s just that bashing papers doesn’t automatically makes computers the solution to a greener future. We should look for a reasonable way with both medias.