[LINK] Environmental impact of web versus print

[Kim Holburn]

I remember everyone talking about "the paperless office" of the  
future but now it's yesterday's tomorrow and there's more paper than  
ever and better, finer printing.  I also remember my first  
programming jobs: I used to print out my code and go over the source  
with coloured textas.  I just didn't like reading detailed text on a  
screen.  I do a lot more on-screen reading now but LCDs are much  
better than CRTs.

Maybe when E-Paper finally gets here it will be as good as paper?   
Then we can use less paper?

How many linkers actually read ebooks?  I can't imagine it myself.  I  
like reading real books.  Until they have downloadable epaper books I  
think I'll pass on ebooks except in extremis.

The other thing is that the whole DRM thing hasn't played out yet.   
When you buy a real book you're getting something you can read, lemnd  
to your friends, borrow, borrow from a library, sell.  What do you  
get when you buy a DRMed book, music, film etc.  You get something  
that a company can take away when they change their mind, when you  
computer crashes and has to be rebuilt.  When DRM/Copyright fight has  
played out a bit maybe it will be worth it to buy digital books.

On 2006 Sep 26, at 9:43 AM, Tom Worthington wrote:

> At 06:25 PM 9/22/2006, rchirgwin at ozemail.com.au wrote:
>> Tom Worthington wrote:
>>> Perhaps AGIMO could carry out a study on: "Are web pages better  
>>> for the environment than paper documents?". ...
>>
>> " A report released yesterday by ABARE on Australia's forest and  
>> wood products statistics shows Australians have increased their  
>> consumption of paper and paper products by 25% ...
>
> So the web has not reduced paper use and may have increased it?
>
> In that case what steps might reverse the trend? Organizations  
> might guarantee that pages would be available in the future. For  
> example the UK government lets its stuff be included in the  
> Internet archive <http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/preservation/ 
> webarchive/>. OJS has an interesting option where the whole of your  
> electronic journal can be automatically backed up to archives  
> around the world. Another way might be to issue DOIs, or similar  
> for documents, to give the sense that they are permanent <http:// 
> www.tomw.net.au/technology/it/qpublishing.shtml>.
>
> Also producing documents in smaller pieces might help. For example  
> providing the summary on a web page first, before the "executive  
> summary" and the full report. At present it is too easy to send a  
> 200 page PDF document off to the printer. If you first ad to look  
> at the one page abstract and then the ten page executive summary,  
> that might slow you down.
>
> ps: Another useful technique would be to buy SLOWER printers for  
> the office and charge the paper cost to individual business units.  
> I have a little ink jet printer which does about two pages a minute  
> (double sided printing by turning the pages over yourself halfway),  
> which really makes you think hard before printing.  ;-)

--
Kim Holburn
IT Network & Security Consultant
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