This article covers a lot of topics all at once. The argument that these data servers are ecological monsters is a little strange though. It makes a better argument for the hidden impact of technology as whole than it does for the evilness of just servers. The truth is these servers are what keep everything we need and or want to use running. Without them we would be setting ourselves back decades.<\/p>\n

The biggest issue I had with this article is that it started to make this food chain of energy, but never really flushed it out fully. The article showed us how much energy servers use, then how much our computers and phones use and then finally how much streaming and videos use. Well this is all great, but the servers are using power, not creating it. Eventually we hear about how Greenpeace and Facebook were using coal power plants and that after some due pressure they changed to renewable energy. The problem lies with that final step. If Google wants to use energy equivalent to the entire country of Turkey that is great, because it is run off of renewable energy. I can guarantee that the entire country of turkey is not using renewable energy. So \u00a0the fact that Google is, is a step in the right direction. In my mind how are these servers \u00a0are not the biggest problem that we face in this scenario. \u00a0In fact these larger companies that use the cloud for storage, save more energy than the local servers.\u00a0It may be harder for smaller companies to do what Facebook and Google are able to do, in terms of using renewable energy. That being said though, they also aren’t using nearly as much energy as those two companies. I think that the more important message to take from this is that even the internet has an effect on the environment. Even though in our mind it is ethereal entity, it is actually just as grounded as a factory.<\/p>\n

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Berkeley Lab Study Finds Moving Select Computer Services to the Cloud Promises Significant Energy Savings<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n