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IT has a huge negative impact on the environment, Suzuki says
IT vendors produce disposable products that often cost more to repair or to fix, says noted environmentalist David Suzuki.4/11/2008 7:51:00 AM By: Brian Jackson
Video: What Suzuki did during Earth Hour When David Suzuki was five-years-old, his parents weren't concerned about the amount of time he spent watching TV or surfing the Web because they'd never heard of a television set or a computer – instead, they worried he'd catch polio.
The world has changed since the noted environmentalist was five-years-old.
“Now we have too much information,” he says. “I don't even know how many TVs we have in our house. We have all this technology and I'm busier than I ever was.”
Suzuki addressed a crowd of IT vendors and users at consultant firm IDC Canada's Green IT-themed conference on Thursday in Toronto. The geneticist spoke frankly with attendees about the need for change in the industry.
He appeared via video conference from Vancouver – an intentional decision to reduce his carbon footprint.
“Technology has to be a part of our sustainable future,” Suzuki says.
The best-selling author also signed copies of his most recent book using LongPen, a technology invented by Canadian author Margaret Atwood and made by Toronto-based Unotchit Inc. The robotic system replicates hand-writing across great distances.
Not only did Suzuki cut down on his greenhouse emissions by not expending jet fuel for the cross-country flight, but it was convenient for him too, says Lawrence Surtees, vice-president and principal analyst with Toronto-based IDC Canada's communications practice. It would've been a 10-hour round trip just to speak for a couple of hours.
“That mind shift will start to happen in the business world as people wake up to this problem of climate change,” he says. “If you can save on your energy usage, it puts profit back on the bottom line and the burden on the planet is less.”
It's critical that this mind shift happen in the IT industry is critical, Suzuki says.
Thousands of scientists studying climate change around the planet now agree that human activity is causing global warming, and experts estimate that IT is responsible for just as much of that as airline companies. We're now at the tipping point of acting to curb its effects or face bleak prospects of survival.
“We stand at a critical moment in human history,” he says. “In a short amount of time, we've exploded from just another species to the most powerful force in the history of the Earth.”
As the dominant species, and the most populous mammal on the face of the planet, our mere needs for survival take a toll on the Earth, he explains. But humans have the bad habit of using technology too.
“The IT area has a huge negative impact on the environment,” he says. “We have a huge need for energy and there's rapid production of waste.”
He noted that IT vendors produce disposable products that often cost more to repair or to fix. Upgrades to hardware also usually means tossing the old model in the trash and plugging in a new model.
“This is simply not sustainable,” Suzuki says. “Nobody wants to stop progress, but we never ask the important question. How much is enough? If there are no limits, that path is suicidal.”
Page Navigation 1) "Technology should be part of our sustainable future."2) "It's the most blunt, most direct and most important message that can be hammered home."
3) Video: How Suzuki spent his Earth Hour
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