Green IT: Now More than Ever

"Each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet. . . . We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We will restore science to its rightful place and wield technology's wonders to raise health care's quality and lower its costs. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. . . . All this we can do. All this we will do."

— President Barack Obama, Inauguration Speech

In yesterday's historic inaugural speech, President Obama set a new direction for America, or perhaps I should say he returned America to its true direction—a course where progress is achieved through responsibility, trust, compassion, creativity, and hard work.

Like many people, I was pleased to hear Obama's pledge to restore science to its rightful place. For the past eight years, the federal government has rejected science and its demonstrable truths for ideological talking points and purblind dreams of grandeur. One of the areas where the administration's suppression of science has been most publicized and most perilous is global warming. The administration has stalled on policy and questioned what no longer bears questioning.

If you would like a vivid reminder of just how compelling the evidence is, how fraught the dangers to human society and natural habits, and how galling governmental inaction has been, I strongly recommend a short, highly readable book written a few years ago by New Yorker writer Elizabeth Kolbert: Field Notes from a Catastrophe.

The title might strike you as alarmist, but by the time you're done reading this book, I suspect you'll be alarmed—and frustrated, too, by our country's inaction.

As the phrase "field notes" suggests, Kolbert reports on research being conducted in the field: in Alaska, Greenland, England, the Middle East, and elsewhere. And the findings of this research are damning:

• The earth is now warmer than it has been for hundreds of thousands of years.
  
• Since 1979, the perennial sea ice in the Arctic has shrunk by roughly 250 million acres, an area roughly "the size of New York, Georgia, and Texas combined." The loss of this ice reduces the earth's ability to reflect sunlight; instead of reflecting light, the exposed seas absorb sunlight's energy, further heating the planet and melting more ice.
  
• After studying satellite data, James Hansen, a NASA official, has warned that if greenhouse gases aren't controlled, the Greenland ice sheet could melt, potentially, in time, raising sea levels 23 feet.
  
• Nineteen biologists from around the world studied the effect of global warming on eleven hundred species of plants and animals. If the species proved to be mobile, 15 percent of them would be "committed to extinction." If the species were stationary, the extinction rate rose to 37 percent.
  
• Heavy rainfall is expected to intensify in some of the most densely populated areas on the planet, such as the Mississippi Delta and the Thames basin. By 2080, England will likely be experiencing so-called century floods every few years.
  

The data goes on and on. The consensus among the scientific community is, for all intents and purposes, universal. The earth is heating up, the heating process has acquired a momentum of its own and will continue for decades, even if we were to curtail the emission of greenhouse gases immediately. But we're not curtailing them, and the Bush Administration had no interest in doing so.

I recently read the Harmon translation of Kafka's The Castle, and the evasiveness and circularity of Bush administration officials in their interview with Kolbert reminded me of scenes out of Kafka, minus the droll humor.

"[Under Secretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs] Dobriansky began by assuring me that despite how it might appear, the Bush administration took the issue of climate change 'very seriously.' . . . At one point, I asked the undersecretary if there were any circumstances under which the administration would accede to mandatory caps on emissions. 'Our approach has been predicated on: we act, we learn, we act again,' she said. In response to a question about how urgent the problem of stabilizing emission was, she replied, 'We act, we learn, we act again,' and in response to a question about what would constitute a 'dangerous' level of CO₂ in the atmosphere, she said, 'Forgive me, I'm going to repeat myself: we act, we learn, we act again.'"

I take it back: I've been unfair to Kafka's characters. Their evasions are far richer and more subtle than anything offered by Dobriansky and other Bush-era flacks.

But here's the thing: what are you doing about global warming in your business? Don't fall into the trap of "I read, I groan, I read again." Take action. Make green IT and green practices part of your strategic plan this year.

And if you need motivation—if you want a good jolt of pursued-by-a-grizzly-bear variety adrenalin for your and your staff—buy and read Kolbert's excellent book. It's available from Amazon, Powell's, and probably your local independent bookseller, as well.