What did you do to save the planet Grandad?
The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere just passed 400ppm a couple of weeks ago.
What haunts me every day, and no doubt will for the rest of my days, is what I will reply to my grandchildren (I'm 34 with no kids at the time of writing) when they ask me what I did during the time when climate change could have been brought under some sort of control, when the necessary changes could have been put in place to create a low-carbon, resilient and thriving culture that nurtured healthy human cultures.
Was I as effective as I could have been? Did I do everything I could have?
Having reflected on this for some time, I've realised that despite reducing, reusing and recycling everything I can in my private life, taking advantage of water butts, solar heating, clean energy, Non Volatile Organic paints, and any other way I can creatively reduce my impact on the environment, I am most proud of my work life.
ICT is responsible for a humongous amount of the world's global CO2e, the majority in building computers, tablets, laptops, and the rest powering them and the vast data centers we use to surf the web. Pretty simplistic assessment there but you get the point. IT accounts for around 3% of emissions now.
However... we cannot function as a species without IT anymore. Smartphone here, tablet there, Oyster card here, iPod in there, Facebook etc IT has the ability to reduce our impact on the environment.
I'm thankful I have a job in this economic climate. I work for @verypc a UK based manufacturer of computer hardware. The core of the business is how to build sustainable computers that have as little impact as possible on the environment in manufacture, use and disposal. Every PC, Laptop and Server I sell is reducing MY impact on the environment. Yes mine, not just the people who buy our kit.
That's what I did to save the planet, and that's how I'll make my grand kids proud, 1 PC at a time.
Picture of UK based Croudace Home group's VeryPC Broadleaf One keeping Green IT white. Good on them!
*Grump