New Media and the Environment
From Baruchnewmedia
Contents |
Japan's Crisis
On March 11 2011, Japan encountered yet another tsunami and earthquake that took thousands of lives and reported over 10,000 people missing. Japan is not just worrying about finding loved ones, but the threat of radiation to those who survived raises even more concerns. The seemingly possible, yet inexact fright among the people's thoughts on radiation express their concerns about the economy as the radiation might destroy their crops, or travel oversees and hit areas that once viewed Japanese products as high quality, and now, closer to harmful. Fortunately, Japan is a high tech country, with most of it's citizens enjoying all the top of the line technology and high speed internet. In times of such disasters, new media has stepped in yet again to provide environmental condition reports, help find missing people, and most of all, keep the country united through effective means of communication. In a recent article released in The Economist, titled "Dealing with Japan's Distaster: The Information Equation," new media is portrayed to be an influential helper for Japan in the midst of upheaval. For one, Google's Person Finder was developed as an online service that compiled and recorded data on missing peoples, deaths and survivals. The service allows for anyone to search for people, report themselves safe, and/or verify that someone else is safe. Also, Twitter and Facebook have been reported to be the most useful place to find information both on people and on current environmental conditions, as facebook created pages for information and Twitter provided a common dialect between the Japanese and their concerns. In addition, YouTube was used to appeal to others to assist and aid in the reconstruction, donations etc. With new media creating a sense of relief, it acts as a semi-hero providing people with information and the ability to take control over their fright in means to find a way to deal with the disaster.
Environmental Movement
Nowadays, every activities, both business and personal activities in human lives have increasingly relied on new media. The interactive power of computers and their widespread uses is helping environmental activists to find people who have common interests, create powerful alliances and expand social impact to a large scale. Thanks to the growing popularity of Facebook and Twitter, environmental activists are able to broadcast events, get mass audiences and share solutions. They get attentions not only from the public, but also from governors.
On October 10th, 2010, 350.org's Global Work Party held over 7000 events in 188 countries to take action on climate change, which is said to be the largest environmental activism event in history. The U.S. President Barack Obama, Maldivian President Mohamed Nasheed, and Illinois Governor Pat Quinn all committed to installing solar on their official residences.
On October 15th, 2010, change.org organized a Blog Action Day that raise user's awareness of water issue.
The World Wildlife Fund relied heavily on social networking tools to publicize their events and ideas to expand social influence. Also, some green communities use social media to raise the public's awareness of pollution issues. Greenpeace's online organizers have succeeded in forcing Nestle change its policy.
Those are just some evidences of how people is using new media to make meaningful environment changes. New media is helping environmental activists to publicize polluters and come up with new tactics and solutions to make improvement.
Benefits of the New Media
1. Paperless
With the computer, the saving of paper is possible. Nowadays, the computer has become one of the essentials of daily life. The widespread use of computers reduces the usage of papers, pens, etc to some degree. Most of newspapers, magazines, books have online version. Instead of buying a paper version of Wall Street Journal, you could purchase one online. A report done by Washington Post suggests that newspaper circulation is declining 3% each year. More and more people are searching on the Internet for news and information. The invention of email, ebanking, online Fax etc also saves paper. As a result, a bunch of trees saved. The popularity of e-commercial lowers demand for paper used to advertise.
2. Carbon emission reduced
The new media increases the poplutation of teleworkers and decreases certain number of cars on the street. According to the study, if 40% of working population work at home even if only for 2 days a week, more than 50 million metric tons of carbon emission would be cut down in a year. Yet only 2.5% worked from home, they still making some contributions to the reduction of carbon emissions, which is approximately 2.5 million. What's more, the 2.5 million reductions is equivalent of taking 10 million cars away from the road. Thanks to the advantages of new media, business people could be able to collaborate virtually, using emails or Digital Video Conferencing eliminates the need for excessive business travels. Therefore, less carbon emissions or wasted gas.
3. Utilize Resources
Computers have increased energy efficiency in a tremendous number of industries to a large scale. Products like books, musics and movies can be sold in electronic version and transmitted through the Internet, save a great amount of resources.
4. Environmental Observation
The U.S. astronaut Mario Runco once said, "Most people don't get to see how widespread some of the environmental destruction is. From up there, you look around and see that it's a worldwide rampage". Computers and new media is helping scientists to access environmental data in an easier way. They could have a relatively complete and accurate picture of the earth to analyze and manipulate by using GIS. It helps them to examine pollution and other environmental issues, model tactics and strategies to better the environment, identify areas rich in nature resources.
5. Benefits to Societies Societies benefits as a whole as someone can create a page about anything on a social networking site and they can discuss its advantages and disadvantages. They can have a common page where they can discuss issues regarding their communities. They can stay in touch with their family, friends...These are a very good place to find out about updates and news as someone in our friend list will post something interesting happened [[1]]
Downsides of the New Media
1. Greenhouse gas
Even though the energy used for computers to keep on working has no substantial impact on the environment, anything we do online leads to a certain amount of CO2 emission. Statisitics show that the Internet will produce 20% of greenhouse gases to the world within a decade.
According to the article "The Impact of the Internet on the Environment", "email is a low carbon producers but anything that involves large file transfer (YouTube) or storage is extremely harmful to the environment". In fact, more than 1.5 billion of people uses the Internet worldwide, which account for a huge amount of carbon emissions.
A single spam email emits 0.3 grams of CO2 around the earth. Plus, nearly 62 trillion spam emails are sent annually. That is equate to 1.6 million cars driving on the street. Google produce about 3,120,000kg of CO2 every year.
Below is a picture shows how much energy are spend on Google searches.
2. Energy Consuming
To store data like songs, movies requires a vast amount of energy. Additionally, the greater the demand, the more energy is used when uploading or downloading an image or a MP3 file.
According to Greenpeace, which is an environmental organization, those companies who have caused consumers’ “addiction to dirty energy” are increasing their energy consumption by around 12% each year."
In 2005, the total 10.3 million data centers consumed enough energy for UK to power for 2 months, which is around 61 billion kwh. Google consumes 48 million energy every year.
Environmentally Friendly Advertising
The emergence of new media technologies has had a literal impact on the environment. New Media has been used widely and by all different groups and individuals as a tool to disseminate information. Rather than paper advertising, digital ads have been incorporated into people's daily activities. When browsing Facebook, you may see ads on the side of your screen tailored to your facebook use and interests. When reading a blog, ads can be found on the sites that may relate to the topic of the blog. Even when reading the news online you will find yourself being asked to become a subscriber. You can even find ads on your phones now when playing a game or using an app.
This form of advertising can directly target users who may be interested in your product because they are already using or searching for something similar. Advertising in this way cuts costs in comparison to traditional paper means. Pamphlets, letters, fliers, newspaper/magazine ads and other paper advertisements do not have to be handed out or mailed to the mass, when only a small percentage of the recipients may be interested in your product. This method of advertising through new media limits the waste created by traditional paper means.
Smaller or local businesses are also using new media now to get in touch with their consumers. Rather than handing out fliers in the vicinity of a few blocks for a new restaurant, the business can now advertise on sites like Groupon.com or Restuarant.com. Paper fliers not only require money to make and distribute, but will most likely only be able to reach the people around the immediate area. Online advertising can target individuals living throughout the city, can be cheaper, and also creates less rubbish on the streets and uses less resources (toner, trees - not everyone prints on recycled paper).
Supporting Causes Through New Media
With the development of new and growing media, many causes have seen the fruits of these ideas. There are many different Medias that one can use to support a cause. However, various factors both motivate and discourage users from supporting causes through new media. As of September 2009, the highest ranking cause supported through new media was "Animal Welfare." The "Environment" came in 4th on the list with 22%
Green Communities and Social Networks
1. Earth Hour
Earth Hour is an annual event that encourage people to turn off their non-essential lights off for one hour. It is organized by the WWF.
2. Change.org
The change.org is a platform for people to discuss major social issues, including environmental problem.
3. TreeHugger
One of the well known green communities online, filled with lots of information about how to make our life green.
References
1. Hedger, Jim. "Internet Use Shows Benefit for the Environment." Search Engine Guide, The small business guide to search marketing. 08 May 2011. <http://www.searchengineguide.com/jim-hedger/internet-use-sh.php>
2. Matthews, Richard. "New Media and the Environmental Movement’s Grassroots Globalization." News, Resources and Commentary on Climate Change, Energy, and Sustainability. 27 April 2011. Web. <http://globalwarmingisreal.com/2010/10/20/new-media-and-the-environmental-movement%E2%80%99s-grassroots-globalization/>.
3. “New Media and the Environment.” eMarketerGreen. 11 Nov 2009. 08 May 2011. <http://www.emarketergreen.com/blog/index.php/media-environment/>.
4. "The Impact of the Internet on the Environment." Arbour Realty helping you plant roots 16 July 2009. 08 May 2011. <http://arbourrealty.com/green-ideas/the-impact-of-the-internet-on-the-environment/>.
