Earth Hour and Coming Events
March 29th, 2008
Today, March 29 is Earth Hour Day, where we will all be encouraged to turn off our lights and non essential appliances from 8pm to 9pm to promote conservation. The World Wildlife foundation launched the idea last year in Australia and it has now gone international.
If you went on Google today you would have seen a black screen as their way of promoting Earth Hour. Already we are seeing the results of this coming in over the web this morning to California from New Zealand and Australia. Christchurch, New Zealand, kicked it off with a countdown in Cathedral Square. The Christchurch press reports that the combined efforts of residents, businesses and communities during their Earth hour resulted in a cut in consumption of 13.1%.during that hour. While they acknowledge that this is a drop in the ocean, it raised awareness of energy consumption and how simple it is to make savings. In the US, special Earth Hour events will be held in flag ship cities like Atlanta, Chicago, Phoenix, and San Francisco. The decorative lights on the Golden Gate Bridge will be shut off during that hour.
Not all the comments on Earth Hour are positive Joe Mendelson in his article in the STAR, “Earth Hour: A new age, tooth fairy tale illusion”, had this comment:
I don’t think Earth Hour will make a difference whatsoever in the scheme of things. It’s delusional. It will not make people more aware of the problem. It’s a feeble recognition of our decline, and it won’t amount to a row of beans unless we plant beans every day.
I will be joining in this effort at home, but I agree with Mr. Mendelson. It is not going to amount to anything unless we sustain it.
When it comes to sustainable technology I often quote Ted Samson’s blog on sustainable IT.
“The idea is to not just haphazardly buy the newest, greenest products out there and stick them in your server rooms and on your desktops in a frantic effort to become green. Rather, it reflects planning and investing in a technology infrastructure that will serve your company’s needs today and tomorrow, while helping your company save money on wasted resources such as energy and paper; make the best possible use of existing datacenter space so as to postpone having to build a new one; and reduce its overall environmental impact, which is both socially responsible and potentially advantageous should the government start cracking down on carbon emissions and the like”.
As I go around visiting different companies I see major efforts to address sustainability.
Many companies like BP have gotten LEED certification for their data center buildings. Companies like Hitachi and Wal-Mart have adopted ISO 140001 compliance for sustainability through Energy Management Systems that cover product design, raw materials, manufacturing, packaging and distribution, use/reuse/maintenance and end of life. Companies are beginning to ask about Green Initiatives in their RFIs.
In April I have been asked to participate in several conferences on the topic of Green. Next Tuesday, I will be speaking at Data Center World Spring 2008 Conference on Eco-friendly data centers during the keynote at 9:00am on April 1. I will also be attending SNW, April 7 to 10 where there will be a number of sessions addressing Green. SNIA will sponsor a tutorial track devoted to Green Storage. Sol Squire from Data Islandia who I have blogged about before, will be presenting in a session at 1110 am on Monday April 7 on best practices and technical considerations in building a Green Data Center.
On April 8 at 1130am, I will be privileged to be on a panel titled “ The Greening of IT: Oxymoron or Journey to a New Reality” with Moderator: Ron Milton, Executive Vice President, Computerworld The panelists include:
Andrew Fanara, Team Leader, ENERGY STAR® Product Specifications Development Group, USEPA
Mark O’Gara, Vice President, Infrastructure Management, Highmark, Inc.
Mark Showers, Chief Information Officer, Monsanto Company
Leighton C. “Chris” Wood, Jr., Director and Chief Technology Officer, Global Storage Practice, Sun Microsystems
While I have worked with Chris Wood before in my days at IBM and through our partnership with SUN, I only know the other gentlemen by reputation. Mark O’Gara and Highmark were recognized as the TOP Green IT organization by Computerworld in February 2008, and Mark Showers was recognized as one of the 100 premier Leaders in IT by Computer World Magazine in 2007 not only for his work at Monsanto but also for his work in the community and on advisory boards for different universities. Mr Fanara will also be very interesting to meet and hear since he is currently leading the effort to develop an Energy Star specification for servers.
I hope to see you at these events, and turn off those lights and power down your Laptops when you leave the room!
