« An angel called Pradsa | Main | High-tech beads for the natives? »
February 19, 2007
The carbon footprint of virtual worlds, Hummers, and Brazilians
I hear from Nick "still in the US without air conditioning" Oakley that a Second Life avatar uses about as much energy as the average Brazilian. Lesson: even virtual worlds have a real carbon footprint. I told a similar story, this time about server farms, in my book. Upon discovering that we share a (probably unhealthy) interest in climate infoporn, Nick went on to tell me that the Hummer H3, with a fuel efficiency of about 9 mpg, uses less energy over its lifetime than a Prius.
It's Monday, we leave for India in a week for now, and things are rather busy - so I simply don't have time to reflect on what these important developments signify. So you do that - and let me know your conclusions in a week or so.
Posted by John Thackara at February 19, 2007 07:50 AM
Comments
Hi
Almost a year to late, but I just found this report from Rocky Mountain Institute that seems to disprove the allegation about Prius VS Hummer footprint from CNW research. Downloadable in pdf from their site.
Per
Posted by: Per Aarvik at January 23, 2008 02:57 PM
