How green is your avatar?

This talk - see below - on Thursday 4 February is not far outside Westcombe Park, at the lovely Deptford Deli, and may be of interest to the transition-minded.

It sounds like the speaker, Paul Mobbs, is going to touch on the hidden energy costs of our high-tech IT - something that even many transition folk don't give much thought to.

Even we like to imagine a future of ever-greater online connectivity, and can convince ourselves that our laptop habit is reasonably energy-efficient and sustainable.

But the peaking of the rare metals which make up their essential components, and the huge consumption of the giant server farms which keep this system ticking over, might prove us wrong on that score. John Michael Greer, among peak oil writers, has written on this.

Here's the blurb:

Have you ever wondered about an avatar’s carbon footprint or considered just how ‘green’ is e-mail?

Paul Mobbs’s talk draws our attention to the consumption of resources not always
obvious as we tap away on our laptops or do our weekly wash.

Knowledge is power and this weeks TASTY! Talk offers food for thought. Hope to see you there.

'Limits to Technology' -- The Ecological Boundaries of the Information Age"
Paul Mobbs

When: 4th Feb. 2010 6pm for 6 15pm start
Where: Deptford Deli 4 Tanner's Hill SE8
Getting there: DLR - Deptford Bridge, Mainline Deptford Station / Buses: 47, 53 & 177
Cost: £2.50 including coffee / tea and slice of cake

Numbers are limited so entry is on a first come first served basis

"From the latest high-tech. gadget to the latest in ecologically cool energy sources, modern society relies on a whole range of metals and minerals to create the specialised electrical goods that we increasingly rely upon. The difficulty with the modern high-tech. age is that, like the operation of the human system as a whole, it is limited by certain natural limits that must ultimately constrain our utilisation of these resources.

"Just like the more general boundaries that were identified in the “Limits to Growth” study nearly forty years ago, the rapid growth in the ways we use these technologies is is driving consumption of resources at a level that cannot be sustained in the longer-term. That's not to say that we won't have “technology” in the future, but it raises questions about its applications, price, availability, and thus the role that technology will play in our everyday lives."