or you could NOT produce any offspring and that will have a huge impact on the planet. But that seems to be the big elephant in the room.

ha ha - the image of the linode staff shovelling coal into a furnace with Caker standing over them cracking a whip yelling "Faster! Faster!"

Well before this becomes a huge debate on whether or not climate change is occurring (which is a pointless argument because we should all do our part regardless; stop driving stupid large SUVs with a single occupant, and grow hemp, because it's actually useful as opposed to the THC byproduct which helps people play video games)... I don't see how it could be costly to leave a smaller footprint?

Many of the 'green' hosts cost exactly the same as the rest. I think the issue facing Linode is, and correct me if I'm wrong, that they don't run their own datacenters, they simply colocate within them. If you're not the owner of the DC it's a lot harder to implement changes like what has been suggested.

As I said though, I could be wrong about the above, it's not explicitly mentioned anywhere. I just seem to remember that being talked about on the forums here at some point.

aVo,

I'm probably as long in the tooth as are you. In addition, I have been professionally involved with science since the 60s.

I was only implying that I have a Linode due to the quality and efficiency of their system. I don't give a hoot about their green footprint. If they become "green" and raise their prices because of that fact, I will look elsewhere.

I am very well read on the pros and cons of "global warming". It is not nearly as cut and dry as you seem to think. I would argue that you are listening to politicians and the main stream media and are swayed by their politically correct mantra, not me.

If you would study a little geology, you would discover that we are in an interglacial period. It is supposed to be warm. Humans introduce only a fraction of the greenhouse gases that mother nature does on her own.

I teach my students to be truly skeptical, not a selective skeptic.

fos

I generally tend to aim more towards the "consume less" end of things as a way to reduce environmental footprint. I enjoy wind turbines and solar power as much as the next guy, but on those hot, humid, still summer nights, we're going to be burning coal to run our air conditioners for the foreseeable future. (Or splitting atoms, but I've found that "nuclear power" is up there with religion and politics, so we'll skip that for now.) This sucks, but it's the way things are.

Linode does not directly purchase their electricity from a regulated utility, so unlike us normal folks, they're not in much of a position to purchase particular power production portfolios. This means that about all they can do is reduce consumption or buy carbon offsets. The former will have real measurable gains; the latter will give them a little logo they can put on their web site to make people feel good.

Datacenter equipment, from servers to air conditioners, is starting to become more efficient. There's a substantial economic impetus for this, of course: nearly every single watt of power that goes into a datacenter comes out of it through the cooling system. Consider the math I did earlier with 500 watts per host (including cooling)... multiply that by 40 hosts in a single 19" rack and you've got 20kW/rack, which is a very large number. Reducing this number is hard work, but the Intels and the Lieberts of the world are trying.

The improvements won't show up right away, of course. Datacenters are built for decades, and the construction of a datacenter (as with any other building) is pretty much an environmental disaster, so we don't go and bulldoze those suckers very often. However, take a look at NAC's new Parsippany datacenter, a 50,000 ft^2 facility currently under construction. Spec'd for 25kW/rack, with energy efficiency in mind and a 350kW solar array on the roof. It's a start.

As for what we can do, your best bet is to work towards cleaner power sources locally. Here at the HoopyCasa, we buy a local renewable electricity portfolio from an electricity cooperative. This ensures that there's at least a bit of a market for those sources in this region. I figure that will do a lot more than buying some offsets from some company with a schnazzy logo.

Even with that, though, it's all about conservation. Buy the most durable and energy-efficient appliances you can, use them smartly, and use them for a long time. -rt (still driving a 2002 Prius and printing on 100% recycled paper)

Personally I'd be more worried about this than CO2 Emissions any day.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 142240.htm

Or just not keep living yourself. Sealing yourself in a garage with the car running provides the delicious irony of using CO to prevent the generation of CO2...

That's the _real_ elephant...

Thanks to all posters/readers.

I understand that if Linode do not have direct control over their energy supply, it is not possible for them to directly change the source of the supply.
They could maybe make some noises and as a paying customer may well be heard (which is what I was hoping for here when I originally posted).
I agree with the concern, articulated by others in this thread, that any efforts anywhere are only effective if genuine and not just PR or profit-related.
There are plenty people jumping on the 'green band-wagon', to which vonskippy referred, with only self-interest in mind; these short-sighted people only add to the problem.

hoopycat.
Thanks for the illuminating info.
Agreed. Reduction of consumption is of significant importance, and often the most easily achieved.
That said, anything which actually reduces carbon (or any other greenhouse gas) in our atmosphere has to be worth considering.

H3LR4ZR
I share your concern.
The two issues are, of course, connected.
More trapped methane will be released from the ice as the temperature/sea levels rise, so any efforts to keep the temp down would make sense here too.

mwaterous
Agreed - the argument over whether GW is happening and/or manmade is redundant.
It seems to me that it would be prudent, considering the potential implications of the issue, to take precautionary action.
And yes - I am on a renewable tariff here in my home office, and it costs exactly the same as a 'conventional' one.
It was very easy to change over.

fos
I'm not looking to pick a row with you, but you're not right about that.
Politicians and the mass media are the very last people I listen to.
These same people/institutions - with Big Biz/Oil/Energy behind them - have for 3-4 decades actively hindered the GW debate at every turn and have taken - and continue to take (witness Obummer's performance at Copenhagen) any opportunity to muddy the water, and throw spanners in the works, whilst carefully trying to appear to care.
I don't have a TV or get a newspaper so as to try and keep these charlatans, and their BS mantras, out of my head.

GW aside, there are other benefits of conservation/sustainability/renewablilty, such as minimising social/environmental impact and finite natural resource depletion, pollution and resouce-based wars.
There is an urgent need to stem rampant wildlife habitat destruction in the search for increasingly scare energy supplies.
Conversion to 'green' sources can also be more economical and create jobs.

Thanks again to all who took the time to contribute to or read this thread.
I hope that it makes a difference, however small.

_________________
T'aint what you do it's the way that you do it.

+1 for green renewables

Linode could increase their profit by switching to green renewables, then use that as a sales point in their sale strategy and advertising.

According to Greenpeace, both Amazon and Digital Realty are "Stuck in dirty energy past: Efficiency only, using mostly dirty energy, have taken few or no steps to switch to renewables". Source: http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/campai ... kingclean/

Greenpeace, with their irrational opposition to nuclear as one of the more practical clean energy sources, is not an authoritative source on such issues.