Re: [Fsfe-uk] ZDNet Carbon-neutral PC runs Vista (not Free software)

[Philip Hunt]

On 9/11/07, Dave Page <address@hidden> wrote:
> > Does it really need re-stating that real environmental benefits come
> > much more readily from _not_ throwing things away? E.g.  taking the 3
> > million PCs chucked in UK landfill last year and using for LTSP (or as
> > GNU desktops). :-/
>
> To be honest, I've not seen anyone run the numbers concerning the energy
> cost of building new machines vs. the savings from more efficient
> hardware, better ACPI etcetera. Is it better for me to use an old
> Pentium as a firewall, or "sponsor" the manufacture of a lower-powered
> embedded device?

It's when people ask questions like this that make me realise that the
way to reduce CO2 emissions is for the government to tax them (or
rather activities that create them, such as using electricity from
fossil fuels). Then people can just look at the price of the two
alternatives (as they would do ordinarily) and they'll automatically
tend to choose the lower-emission alternative.


-- 
Philip Hunt, address@hidden