Dr. Redekopp Visit
Hello readers and welcome back,
This past week our class and I had the wonderful opportunity to hear a presentation from Dr. Redekopp who is a professor from The University of Manitoba. Dr. Redekopp, unfortunately, was unable to perform his presentation in our class but rather he joined us via "Zoom" an online video-conferencing application that I have discussed in previous blog posts.
Dr. Redekopp shared great thought and insight on the topic of digital citizenship, and how we can promote it within the classroom. Additionally, he also talked specifically on the topic of The digital footprint technology has on the enviroment, probing what factors we must consider when using/creating tech? and what future implications on the environment must be considered with tech?
The 2 most important factors to be addressed
1. Design / Quality
2. Energy use
As different tech devices are created the Design / Quality plays a big role in the lifespan of the device. If a device is built cheaply and only to last a few years to make the consumer buy the new edition, is the device worth the price tag companies claim its worth? leaving you to buy a new phone year after year to maintain its relevance to the new edition to me isn't a great model for the consumer to follow. The problem with the current method of individuals buying a whole new phone every year or two is the tech waste that is being thrown out. This tech material is not good for the environment and hard to recycle especially the battery. The example Dr. Redekopp proposed for this problem is for phones to have interchangeable hardware in which the owner can simply buy a new battery, or buy a new camera for the phone instead of having to buy a completely new phone to just upgrade one part. I feel this would be a very useful way for the consumer to the same money, and at the same time reduce the tech waste produced for the environment.
As much as waste will affect the environment Energy Use plays a bigger factor in the effects of technology on the environment. Heres a thought, how much energy is produced from a single google search?........ Enough to light a 60W light bulb for 17 seconds, this may not seem like much but multiply that by the roughly 1 billion Google searches a day you come to 12 million watts of power a day enough to power 200,000 homes. The cloud you know that thing that saves all of our data, yeah that thing is actually warehouses full of hard drives that save our stuff. According to Inhabitat.com which breaks down a great infographic of Google's energy consumption, their data centers "The Cloud" produce a quarter of a nuclear power plant power or 1.5% of the world's power. These are crazy numbers but can we think of the implications into the future as we become more and more tech-dependent and have more data to store? This could become a problem in the future. Google, however, does do a good of counteracting its energy consumption with renewable resources to build a sustainable energy model. However, in the future are all companies able to follow suit? Check out Inhabitat.com and the Google energy infographic for yourself the numbers are crazy!
I hope you enjoyed my thoughts on Dr. Redekopp's presentation. If you have any ideas, comments or thoughts on the factors we must consider with the development of technology please share in the comments, or let's start a conversation on Twitter @MrKeilback
- BK
Image Source:https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/information-technology/2019/04/08/secure-and-sustainable-electronics-recycling/
Dr. Redekopp shared great thought and insight on the topic of digital citizenship, and how we can promote it within the classroom. Additionally, he also talked specifically on the topic of The digital footprint technology has on the enviroment, probing what factors we must consider when using/creating tech? and what future implications on the environment must be considered with tech?
The 2 most important factors to be addressed
1. Design / Quality
2. Energy use
As different tech devices are created the Design / Quality plays a big role in the lifespan of the device. If a device is built cheaply and only to last a few years to make the consumer buy the new edition, is the device worth the price tag companies claim its worth? leaving you to buy a new phone year after year to maintain its relevance to the new edition to me isn't a great model for the consumer to follow. The problem with the current method of individuals buying a whole new phone every year or two is the tech waste that is being thrown out. This tech material is not good for the environment and hard to recycle especially the battery. The example Dr. Redekopp proposed for this problem is for phones to have interchangeable hardware in which the owner can simply buy a new battery, or buy a new camera for the phone instead of having to buy a completely new phone to just upgrade one part. I feel this would be a very useful way for the consumer to the same money, and at the same time reduce the tech waste produced for the environment.
As much as waste will affect the environment Energy Use plays a bigger factor in the effects of technology on the environment. Heres a thought, how much energy is produced from a single google search?........ Enough to light a 60W light bulb for 17 seconds, this may not seem like much but multiply that by the roughly 1 billion Google searches a day you come to 12 million watts of power a day enough to power 200,000 homes. The cloud you know that thing that saves all of our data, yeah that thing is actually warehouses full of hard drives that save our stuff. According to Inhabitat.com which breaks down a great infographic of Google's energy consumption, their data centers "The Cloud" produce a quarter of a nuclear power plant power or 1.5% of the world's power. These are crazy numbers but can we think of the implications into the future as we become more and more tech-dependent and have more data to store? This could become a problem in the future. Google, however, does do a good of counteracting its energy consumption with renewable resources to build a sustainable energy model. However, in the future are all companies able to follow suit? Check out Inhabitat.com and the Google energy infographic for yourself the numbers are crazy!
I hope you enjoyed my thoughts on Dr. Redekopp's presentation. If you have any ideas, comments or thoughts on the factors we must consider with the development of technology please share in the comments, or let's start a conversation on Twitter @MrKeilback
- BK
Image Source:https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/information-technology/2019/04/08/secure-and-sustainable-electronics-recycling/
I thought it was a very eye-opening presentation as well! Crazy to think of all the energy costs of technology!
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