RE: Gauging green

I've received several comments on this newsletter via e-mail. I'll post them here. Here's the first:

If you are jumping on the Green Wagon and considering what you may say can sway others into a direction, I'd like to caution you to exercise logic. Just because Mr. Gore says that we are in peril, science refutes his claims. Nature exercises periods of adjustments with highs and lows through time. A vivid example and very valid is that the earth is in such balance that if we were able to create an element a miniscule portion to add, we would throw the entire planet into a tizzy. If we were able to create an additional drop of water, the world be out of balance but we've learnt from quantum sciences (chemistry and physics) that the end result of an action transformation occurs thus balance prevails. When we burn some burnable material, are we destroying it? Some may think we do but we just are transforming it into another element.

Here's another comment I received via e-mail:

There's not a whole lot of interest because there's not a whole lot of faith in what we're being told. You don't burn up a million watts of amplifier power at a Life Earth rock concert, and convince people to buy energy saving light bulbs.

Those us still around from the 70s "Energy Crisis" remember the same folks telling us we'd run out of oil in 10 years. That was about 30 years ago.

We may be warming up, but what's going to change that? Mother earth, in her infinite wisdom has thousands of active volcanoes around the world putting out a hundred times more CO2, SO2, and other nastier stuff than all of civilization combined. Seems we need to solve that one first. How about prayer?

Even Al Gore needs to convince his son first, that driving a hybrid at 100 mph at 6 mpg isn't helping.

We'll finally pay attention to the issue when our waterfront condo has an ocean view from the third floor window - about a hundred yards off shore!

PS Here'e a great energy saving tip for you. Save all that computer power your using over the Internet, and instead send a postcard every week to all your readers. That'll work.

Here's the third comment I received via e-mail:

Since most of the stories are only a little biased by the advertising dollars, it seems to be a waste of time to read them (unless they are sponsored by a vendor we already are or will be doing business with.

We really don't need the biased opinions of the writers to tell us to save money. That's kind of obvious even to us non-doctorate types. We've been using energy star compliant products from the beginning, so what is so earth shaking about the Europeans mandating it?

As Americans we are going to do what ever it takes to give our business a chance at being more competitive. Some of us had already figured out wasting power was still waste. We also realize A/C wastes power. After all, isn't heat a form of energy? I know that when we converted from CRTs to LDC displays we actually had to start heating our facilities more in the winter here in Minnesota. That should say something about wasted energy.

I'm sure you were looking for a deeper response from people, but reading about common sense seems to also be a waste of energy to me.

Here's the fourth comment I received via e-mail:

Trying to go green is commendable, lofty goal however for most of us the latest security vulnerability, database crash, etc... take up most of the available cycles. Then there is the really important stuff like checking out the new iphone .

I guess what I'm saying is that green products are getting lost in the barrage of information that guys like me receive daily. When we do get to spend some cycles on planning the next data center upgrade, green is certainly a consideration... right along with VM and iscsi and, and, and.

Here's the fifth comment I received via e-mail:

It would be fair to call me born-again green. While I have always been inclined in this way, I am only now bringing a new level of commitment to green issues in my personal life. As a result of this commitment, I am very interested in articles about how to make my job responsibilities take on a more green perspective.

The problem, as I see it is that I am only starting to (insidiously at times J ) bring my perspective into my place of work. I believe this will be a process that will take time and, as a result articles will also have to build in interest as the new face of computing continues to take shape.

The only way to really speed the process is if we had a major shift in the cost of the energy it takes to power the datacenter, which has not happened in a dramatic fashion. The slow, methodical increases in electric power prices are not driving a mass migration to more green technologies.

I do believe it will get to the point that business will realize the price to be paid for the way things have been done to date is no longer worth it. Also, there are technologies being implemented now that I could consider green – server virtualization / consolidation is one example. It would have only been a short time ago that a “back-end” application that had a handful of users would have automatically been given a separate server and that machine would rarely see utilization above a percent or two. Now, an application like that would be relegated to a virtual server, along with many other, similar applications and be none the worse for it. All the while, the count of physical server machines has only risen by a small amount. In my mind, this in itself is a victory of sorts. A few battles won, while the war continues.

In the end, I think articles on greening the data center are going to be necessary and well received but we have to be patient. Over the long term, green technology costs will become less expensive than the old way, over the long term (in some cases, they already are cheaper.) Resistance to greening computing and business in general is temporary and futile – the Accountants are coming.

Here is the sixth comment I received via e-mail:

I enjoy reading your articles, and am very happy that you seem to take green seriously.

I can only confirm that as a cable manufacturer, Nexans is taking this very seriously; we have launched initiatives in this field, and hope that it will become generator of innovation.

I agree though that so far it is a lot of talk, and we have not touched yet the areas that will really hurt; it takes time to bring everybody on board, management, employees, customers, authorities etc... but I am convinced that the ship has left the harbour this time.

Join the green debate at the Green Your Network blog.

Go to Cisco Subnet for more Cisco news, blogs, discussion forums, security alerts, book giveaways, and more.

I am glad to see an article like this. And also enjoy the added entertainment of seeing "a country divided" showing up in the posts you've received.

Putting all political, media, and business convictions aside, it's pretty obvious that taking an interest in preserving the planet, in any way possible, is important, and it's not too awful hard to work out. It's just a matter of what people care about, and how they think about the world around them.

Now bringing back in the bias of fear and anxiety, my response becomes: it's pretty easy for the "other half" to get jaded, tired, wornying about whether it's 6pm yet so we can hit the liqour store for that case of beer after work, and get home in time to see how nicely Mr. Bush is running things. Thank goodness for Bush, Nixon, Reagan, and all the Republicans! Thank goodness for big oil, big business, Microsoft, Cisco, and big money. After all, if we didn't have these forces in our lives, who is going to take care of America, and ensure that we have enough oil, jobs, energy, etc? The junior programmer drinking his case of beer after work?

Anyway...you see my point...nice article. It's all in people's attitudes.

PS Thanks for letting me flame a little.