Ways in which free sofware is greener
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| mvermeer Jul 23, 2007 5:49 AM EDT |
As the article notes (correctly IMHO), free and open source software tends to be greener by being more efficient, less bloated. But this is somewhat imprecisely put: OpenOffice, Mozilla, Gnome etc. definitely qualify as bloatware too. More precisely one could point out that one doesn't have to install those all. There exist options for less bloated desktops, one has freedoms not readily available to Windows users. This allows the productive use of previous-generation hardware, that would otherwise become landfill. The absence of the software-hardware upgrade threadmill. A second point I didn't see in the article is the option of a client-server architecture enabled by X and used, e.g., in the Linux Terminal Server Project. One big server plus lots of little client workstations (e.g., recycled PCs), rather than having resources replicated on every desktop. A third point: security. When 80% of email globally is spam, consuming server and networking hardware and expendables, a platform unlikely to contribute to the problem may rightfully be called 'green'. |
| helios Jul 23, 2007 9:37 AM EDT |
Define bloat. What you consider bloat, I consider needed tools. Some may enjoy a spartan, barren desktop with a right-click mentality and a windows 3.1 ambiance. While I do agree that there are some things in kde that may qualify as unnecessary, I always have the option to either take them out or not install them. And yes, I have a KDE desktop dressed in full regalia. Every bell and whistle is either employed or stands at my beck and call to perform with a simple mouse-click. Then again, it depends on your physical environment. You would be amazed at how many people I have migrated to Linux by them glancing at my desktop in passing and commenting. "Dude...what the heck is that?" And by having my desktop thusly, I will now apologize for it being responsible for the defoliation of at least two rainforests. Where do I purchase my Carbon Offset Credits? h |
| jdixon Jul 23, 2007 9:40 AM EDT |
> Where do I purchase my Carbon Offset Credits? We have 44 acres of trees on our property, give a take a bit. I suspect that's enough to cover most of the LXer regulars and have some left over. And if that's not good enough, I'll bet TC has even more. |
| dinotrac Jul 23, 2007 9:55 AM EDT |
>We have 44 acres of trees on our property, Regardless of what the wannabee carbon-offset billionaires tell you, trees don't work very well as carbon offset because they run through a complete cycle. Sure, the carbon they take out of the air is held in the body of the tree temporarily, but that stuff ends up going back into the atmosphere over the entire life cycle of the tree. And, lest we forget, trees give off methane, a greenhouse gas 23 times more potent than CO2 while adding their own contribution to warming by means of their nice dark heat-absorbing foliage. |
| jdixon Jul 23, 2007 10:09 AM EDT |
> Regardless of what the wannabee carbon-offset billionaires tell you, trees don't work very well as carbon offset... Shush Dino. You don't want to ruin a perfectly good scam do you? :) |
| dinotrac Jul 23, 2007 10:29 AM EDT |
>Shush Dino. You don't want to ruin a perfectly good scam do you? :) Whoops!!! Last thing I need is Al Gore getting mad at me for standing in the way of his fortune! |
| mvermeer Jul 23, 2007 12:03 PM EDT |
> ...I always have the option to either take them out or not
> install them. Precisely. Free software is good at that. > And yes, I have a KDE desktop dressed in full regalia. Every > bell and whistle is either employed or stands at my beck and > call to perform with a simple mouse-click. Same here... well, it's Ubuntu/Gnome/Nvidia. On previous-generation hardware, no problem. As to impressing passers-by, for that I have my Nokia 770... |
| mvermeer Jul 23, 2007 12:18 PM EDT |
> because they run through a complete cycle. Very true... but substituting firewood from your own land for fossil fuel still gets you on the credit side of the CO2 books. If that's what you do... > while adding their own contribution to warming by means of > their nice dark heat-absorbing foliage. Only if you ignore the water binding and evapotranspiration behaviour of the forest, raising relative humidty, causing a more humid microclimate with likely greater cloud cover. And thus a higher albedo. Don't ask me for hard numbers on this -- but also don't imply you have any ;-/ |
| dinotrac Jul 23, 2007 12:53 PM EDT |
>but substituting firewood from your own land for fossil fuel still gets you on the credit side of the CO2 books. Which is just plain wrong. Using firewood from your own land should be neutral (OK -- there is this little pollution problem, but we'll ignore that) and using fossil fuel should be a debit. The fiction that we can actually offset fossil fuels by using carbon-neutral technologies is a shell game. |
| jdixon Jul 23, 2007 1:03 PM EDT |
> The fiction that we can actually offset fossil fuels by using carbon-neutral technologies is a shell game. Yep. I said it was a scam, didn't I? :) Many of the "green" initiatives are good things in and of themselves (waste not, want not is still a good motto to embrace), but to what degree they help prevent climate change is debatable at best. Carbon offsets are, as far as I can tell, completely bogus. |
| dinotrac Jul 23, 2007 1:45 PM EDT |
> Carbon offsets are, as far as I can tell, completely bogus. Completely is a tiny bit too string -- but only a tiny bit. Martin got it right on the theory -- if you stop using carbon fuels, you have created a negative carbon impact, but only if measured from the previous level that assumes you are pouring X amount of carbon into the air. You have to assume that your previous level was somehow "OK". Where it gets really hokey, though, is the idea of selling your carbon credits. Some big bad manufacturer doesn't clean up their act because they can buy your carbon credits cheaper. Net result, just as much carbon belching into the air, but... a) you get some money for your efforts -- which is nice, and b) the costs of goods doesn't go up as much as it would have, but c) it still goes up because of the need to buy those carbon credits, and the carbon balance isn't changed one bit. We pay more for nothing! |
| Sander_Marechal Jul 23, 2007 2:15 PM EDT |
@dino: The idea behind carbon credits is that there is only a set amount and no more. And they start off by giving everyone a bit too few to encourage people to clean up their act. You can't just "buy" carbon credits. Someone has to sell them. And to be able to sell them the supplier of CCs will have to substantially lower their own outpour. It's not a bad system in theory. A bit bureaucratic perhaps. The only downside I see is distribution. The west has more money and will be able to buy the CCs of poorer countries. This has two effects: 1) For poorer countries it's likely that selling CCs is an easier way to get money than developing themselves. Development of such countries could slow as a result. 2) Carbon outpour would drop in those poorer regions but not so much in the rich west (because we buy the CCs we need). I wonder if reducing the outpour significantly in only a part of the world will have an effect. |
| dinotrac Jul 23, 2007 2:41 PM EDT |
> The idea behind carbon credits is that there is only a set amount and no more. That is a necessary corollary of what I wrote. You start at a given point, and you gain carbon credits by reducing your output of carbon into the atmosphere. That's not bad if you start from a healthy point. Every transaction will tend to keep you around that healthy point. If, however, you start from an unhealthy point, the transactions will tend to keep you around that unhealthy point. If Al Gore is to be believed, we are at an unhealthy point and getting worse. >This has two effects: There is actually a third effect, and it is a very nasty one. I have read about it mostly with regard to western nations bidding for Chinese credits. It works like this: 1. Western industrial operations are already relatively clean and efficient -- they have been subject to both regulation and competition for years. Not where they need to be, perhaps, but a long way from zero. 2. Chinese industry is...ahem..not. 3. With emissions, like most things, you get a much bigger bang for the buck with your first steps from zero than you do going from 70-80 or 80-90. Hence, Chinese companies can clean carbons out a lot more cheaply than their Western counterparts. 4. Bidding drives the price of any carbon deficit up so long as it remains cheaper than cutting your own output. Relatively cheap wins become very expensive, prices of Western goods go up while the Chinese economy gets even more money to compete. As a bonus, in a country like China, which refuses mandatory carbon limits, it is a powerful disincentive to clean up your own output until somebody backs the bank truck up to your own door. Oh ... and this money is going to the major industrial power with the least trustworthy regulatory apparatus, which means that we really, really, hope those carbon credits are real. |
| Sander_Marechal Jul 23, 2007 3:33 PM EDT |
Quoting:That's not bad if you start from a healthy point. Every transaction will tend to keep you around that healthy point. If, however, you start from an unhealthy point, the transactions will tend to keep you around that unhealthy point. IIRC it was also the point to *reduce* the amount of Carbon Units available every year. This could provide a push from the unhealthy point to the more healthy point. I'm not 100% sure about this reduction though. With regards to China, there's one big point you're missing: China's industrial growth. They will get the same amount of CCs but their industry is about to boom. That means much less CCs per factory/company over time as more of them are built. The big early improvements the Chinese can make with their currently polluting industry will probably mostly be spent on their national industrial growth. It all depends a bit on how the CCs are initially distributed. - Globally equal based on population size? The west will have a head start because it's already cleaner. - Based on some historical figure (e.g. 70's or 90's level)? Very bad for developing countries. - Based on economic growth models? Fairer, but leads to the disadvantage you described above. - etcetera. |
| tqk Jul 23, 2007 3:44 PM EDT |
Don't mean to rain on the parade, but there are some of us out here who believe all this human engineered "Global warming" stuff is a crock. Mars is warming at the same rate Earth is, and we're not there. Sol has far more influence in this system than we humans ever will have. Earth has gone through many cycles in its history, far beyond our ken. Just a little Devil's advocate mode to stir the pot. |
| dinotrac Jul 23, 2007 4:13 PM EDT |
>all this human engineered "Global warming" stuff is a crock Crock or no crock, the whole carbon offset thing is smoke and mirrors, IMHO. Am highly suspicious of emphasis on CO2 when you consider that it would take 100,000 years for the atmosphere to return to pre-industrial levels if every single human being on the face of the earth were to magically vanish today. Whether people have caused it or not, we can do some things to mitigate or exacerbate it -- as the impact of air traffic grounding on 9/11 demonstrated. Re-arranging airline traffic and reducing methane emissions would seem more fruitful in the short term than CO2 reductions. But then, if it were that big a problem, I can't imagine Ted Kennedy would worry about something so trifling as his view off Nantucket being spoiled by a wind farm. |
| Sander_Marechal Jul 23, 2007 4:44 PM EDT |
I think the whole carbon offset is not so much about making it better but about not making it worse. |
| dinotrac Jul 23, 2007 5:16 PM EDT |
>I think the whole carbon offset is not so much about making it better but about not making it worse. That's all it can be, and it can only work if everyone in the world plays, which means, it's a feel-good measure designed to make some people very, very rich. |
| jdixon Jul 23, 2007 5:22 PM EDT |
> It all depends a bit on how the CCs are initially distributed. It also depends on our being able to trust China to keep their word and not just lie about what they're doing. How confident are you of that? And what would you propose that we do if it turns out they do lie? |
| jezuch Jul 23, 2007 5:24 PM EDT |
Carbon offsets are the "Here, have some cash and shut up already" of Great Politics. |
| mvermeer Jul 23, 2007 6:20 PM EDT |
> Martin got it right on the theory Dino, thanks for the backhanded compliment ;-) |
| mvermeer Jul 23, 2007 6:31 PM EDT |
> Don't mean to rain on the parade, but there are some of us out here who believe all this human engineered "Global warming" stuff is a crock Yeah. And some of us believe that the Apollo moonflights happened in Hollywood, and that the Earth is flat and was created 6000 years ago. "Believe" doesn't cut it. |
| jdixon Jul 23, 2007 6:40 PM EDT |
> "Believe" doesn't cut it. If it's proof you want, you'll be waiting for a fairly long time, no matter which side you choose to believe. There's no way to prove that matter in either direction. You look at the evidence and make your best judgment, trying to keep in mind that you may be entirely wrong. We simply don't know enough about our climate and the forces which affect it to be certain about what's happening or what's causing it. Those who claim we do are lying. |
| dinotrac Jul 23, 2007 6:44 PM EDT |
>We simply don't know enough about our climate and the forces which affect it to be certain about what's happening or what's causing it. Those who claim we do are lying. I would pretty much agree with you on both counts, except that I'm busily lashing myself down as protection against the residual effects of the record number of hurricanes everybody has predicted for this...wait - what's that you say? Really? Never mind. We do, however, know that man affects the climate, even if we aren't always good at figuring out how, how much, and in which direction. All other things being equal, it makes sense not to put needless crud into the atmosphere and not to use up finite resources needlessly. Trouble is, all other things never stay equal, and that's the rub. "Do something" needs to be balanced against ALL of the consequences. |
| mvermeer Jul 24, 2007 1:23 AM EDT |
Dino pretty much sums it up. jdixon: are you suggesting we should all become climatologists? The approach you propose is actually the one followed by the scientific community of climatologists, following time-tested scientific practice, peer review etc. And no, I don't hear any of those folks claiming to have the final answers. Only the best ones currently on offer. Which IMHO responsible policy should be based on. I'd rather believe the gist of what that community of practitioners is telling me, uncertain as it is, than the "belief" of some arbitrary LXER poster :-/ |
| jdixon Jul 24, 2007 5:23 AM EDT |
> ...are you suggesting we should all become climatologists? No, but I am suggesting that you use the evidence the climatologists and meteorologists are providing rather than what those with political goals tell you. Then make your decisions based on that evidence. > Only the best ones currently on offer. Which, to summarize, as best I can tell it, is: Yes, the climate is changing. Yes, humans are contributing to the changes. At the moment the trend appears to be towards global warming. No, we don't know the exact cause or causes. No, we don't know what percentage is being caused by human activity. Yes, there is some cause for concern, but we're not certain exactly how much. Oh, and it might be a good idea to start considering what we can do to about it, if anything. And, of course, we could be wrong on all of the above. And no, there is no consensus about the matter; science doesn't work that way. Given the above, and comparing it to the proclamations of impending doom from the various political groups out there, are you surprised that many people write the entire thing off as a scam? Especially when those same groups are advocating world wide political changes which will involve significant economic hardships for some people and greatly increase government powers around the globe. |
| dinotrac Jul 24, 2007 5:53 AM EDT |
>I'd rather believe the gist of what that community of practitioners is telling me, uncertain as it is, than the "belief" of some arbitrary LXER poster Umm -- I'd rather they present me convincing data AND account for questions, not view the community of scientists as some sort of priesthood for the modern age, which is what seems to be the case for this highly political issue. We have this new value of "consensus" - whatever that means for science. It seems to mean that, if you get enough scientists, many of whom are not any more climatologists than you or I, that it is sacreligious to question their combined wisdom. Scientists -- even respected climatologists -- are "deniers", and people who do have the temerity to question are lumped with holocaust deniers. That's not hyperbole on my part, by the way. Ellen Goodman of the Boston Globe made precisely that comparison, and others seem to make it implicitly. The sad thing is that consensus is not a high value in science, especially for relatively new science. You need only ask 2005 Nobel Prize winners Barry Marshall and J. Robin Warren about that. Data matters. Communicating that data honestly -- including the warts and anomolies matters. It has to matter. We are asked to vote based on the information we get. We can't afford priests in lab coats. |
| mvermeer Jul 24, 2007 7:06 AM EDT |
> Umm -- I'd rather they present me convincing data AND
> account for questions, not view the community of
> scientists as some sort of priesthood for the modern
> age, which is what seems to be the case for this highly
> political issue. Unfortunately being successfully on the receiving end of this -- which would be great! -- pretty much requires you to become a climatologist yourself. Not an option, not even for me, a geoscientist. (Did you try to read IPCC 4 -- not the exec summary?) I don't second-guess my docter; I may get a second opinion. And yes, I do expect her to at least try to explain things to me in terms I understand, well knowing the limitations of that. Sometimes you just have to accept other people's judgment. Believe you me, those scientists don't want to be priests! They would love nothing better than everyone understanding precisely what it is they are doing, it would make many things so much easier. That others are suffering from this priesthood thingy should not be pinned on the scientists. |
| jdixon Jul 24, 2007 7:17 AM EDT |
> Unfortunately being successfully on the receiving end of this -- which would be great! -- pretty much requires you to become a climatologist yourself. I don't believe that's true. Now, some of the more esoteric physics theories, yes, but not climatology. |
| mvermeer Jul 25, 2007 12:55 AM EDT |
> jdixon:
> No, we don't know the exact cause or causes You are seriously understating the level of our understanding. The physical mechanisms involved are _very_ well known. The problem is more that of instability in the climate system itself: model outcomes are highly sensitive to small changes in some of the model assumptions. (It's a bit like with weather predictions, even perfect models will not allow you to predict far into the future. The nature of this instability is quite different though.) Much current research is going into this problem. Cloud formation is one of these problems btw where the micro-level affects the macro-level in intractable ways. Condensation nuclei for clouds can be aerosols, like the soot particles from airliners, or the secondary cosmic ray showers that get modulated by solar activity (the probable cause of the "little ice age"). These things are not hard to understand, but are _hell_ to model correctly. > No, we don't know what percentage is being caused by human activity Currently not, no... but it's not going to stay that way. CO2 emission is an exponential growth process, doubling time some 30 years (assuming business-as-usual). This is what makes it somewhat important to predict what is going to happen before rather than after it happens ;-/ > And, of course, we could be wrong on all of the above Not likely... high school physics (what this is) is not going out the window. It is still (barely) within the range of possibilities that the increase in global mean temperature will be zero by 2100, but only if some rather large effects were to cancel rather precisely. Like cloud cover increasing just enough to offset CO2 greenhouse forcing. Even if that were to happen, non-global climate changes would still occur. Shifting of fertile and arid zones, melting of polar ice, extreme weather events, the height of the tropopause... the world's climate would still profoundly change, only not this one number everybody looks at. > And no, there is no consensus about the matter; science doesn't work that way. Actually it does when scientific issues get settled and turn into textbook matter (there is a consensus, e.g., on the hot origin of the universe), but wrt climate change we're not there yet. And yet, I see a consensus of sorts appearing, as modelling results are starting to converge. Anyway, already a view held by over 50% of those whose job it is to know these things, should be taken very seriously by decision makers. IMHO of course ;-) |
| jdixon Jul 25, 2007 3:03 AM EDT |
> You are seriously understating the level of our understanding. Which you then take several paragraphs to dispute and prove my point. :) > Actually it does when scientific issues get settled and turn into textbook matter (there is a consensus, e.g., on the hot origin of the universe), but wrt climate change we're not there yet. No. It doesn't. Even supposedly textbook matters change all the time. Look at a matter as simple as the number of planets in the solar system. We're always accumulating more data, and that data often contradicts what we thought we knew. > Anyway, already a view held by over 50% of those whose job it is to know these things, should be taken very seriously by decision makers. There's a wide gulf between taking it seriously and the vast increase in government powers many of the doomsday folks are calling for. Do you really want the UN to be able to tax you for breathing? |
| dinotrac Jul 25, 2007 3:14 AM EDT |
Martin - > CO2 emission is an exponential growth process, doubling time some 30 years (assuming business-as-usual). One question -- I understand that CO2 forcing is not linear, that at some concentration -- not radically higher than the current level, it has, for all intents and purposes, done all the forcing it's going to do. Is that right? >And yet, I see a consensus of sorts appearing, as modelling results are starting to converge. This is the stuff that scares me. Consensus comes from people who think alike. Thinking alike can be because the data demands it. Conversely, the data can seem to demand it because the people who collect it think alike. Don't know about the rest of the world, but, in the US, the academic process has degenerated into one that rewards conformity. Publish or perish + the tenure process = one big happy, if contankerous, family. This is an area with lots of potential for covariance and lots of mechanisms pushing in different directions. Lots of room to fudge in favor of your politics and personal biases. Especially scary because we have the politics of energy and, er, politics involved as well - whether it be weaning from oil or justifying nuclear power plants. IMHO, it is an area in which scientists have to be especially squeaky clean and work hard to avoid politics because they are the source of the most objective data we have. When scientists stop worrying about the factual details to serve their idea of "the big picture" (are you listening, Dr. Hansen?) they undermine the trust we should have for the science they do. |
| Sander_Marechal Jul 25, 2007 4:42 AM EDT |
Quoting:Don't know about the rest of the world, but, in the US, the academic process has degenerated into one that rewards conformity. It's a good think then that there's a lot of stuff going on outside the U.S. (where, incidentally, roughly the same conclusions are being drawn with regards to climate change) |
| dinotrac Jul 25, 2007 4:48 AM EDT |
>It's a good think then that there's a lot of stuff going on outside the U.S. I don't know that it's any different elsewhere. I don't have any experience that would lead me to a conclusion one way or the other. |
| mvermeer Jul 26, 2007 5:46 AM EDT |
Dean: > One question -- I understand that CO2 forcing is not linear, that at some > concentration -- not radically higher than the current level, it has, for > all intents and purposes, done all the forcing it's going to do. Is that > right? Hmmm, it's a bit more complicated than that. I understand that the effect is logarithmic -- every further doubling (or percentual increase) of CO2 will add the same amount of greenhouse forcing to the mix. The formula looks like W = const. x ln(C/C0), where C is the concentration and C0 the pre-industrial concentration. This is a simple bulk expression summarizing the (in reality extremely complex) behaviour of global climate models. And the latest generation of models agree pretty nicely on the value of the constant. (No, all different code bases.) (If you are referring to the 'saturation idea' -- i.e., a greenhouse with double glass panes is just as effective as one with single panes, because the first pane already absorbs all there is to absorb -- then, no. The atmosphere is no glass pane. This fallacy comes up again and again and was even mainstream up to the 1950's.) > Consensus comes from people who think alike. Thinking alike can be because > the data demands it. Conversely, the data can seem to demand it because the > people who collect it think alike. The second would scare me too. But you can quote me on the first applying here -- if you look at the community of actually active climate modellers. BTW have a look at the "Priesthood Blog" ;-) : http://realclimate.org. These are the actual people I mean. Contrary to your stereotyped depiction (which may refer to some bandwagon politicos) these folks are desperate, not only to get the message out, but to get people to gain a conceptual understanding of the physics involved (and chemistry, and biology, and astronomy...). And they do a pretty good job at it too. Read their debunking of saturation for instance! |
| dinotrac Jul 26, 2007 7:52 AM EDT |
Martin - Thanks. I'll go over there. For US folk -- the latest Scientific American's cover story is on the science behind global warming. I have only just started to go through it, so I don't know how good it is. |
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