Why I Canceled My CO2stats Account
altgate.com
altgate.com
The author of the present article has done the same thing in the opposite direction, replying to linkbait with linkbait. If he'd really wanted to see what Alex had to say about these issues, he could have looked on CO2Stats' site.
(1) Linkbait? Egregious? Come on. I'm a fan (of YC) and have no need for, interest in or motive to linkbait. Read my blog, dude.
(2) Naivete? You've given thousands of interviews. I've given hundreds. Seriously, when did you not know the angle the reporter was pursuing? I can say zero (but then I've not been the target of 60 Minutes). At best Alex was naive and at worst he was abetting a greenmailer.
(3) CO2stats has the right goal. I have no beef with, in fact I emphatically support, the objective. My job is to support green issues. That said, we have to be conscious of our means and greenmail can't be one of them.
'nuf said.
I was even hosed this way once by Steven Levy, who is one of my favorite reporters. He came to several dinners during one YC cycle. I must have talked to him for hours. I explained all the nuances of how YC works. Out of all that he ends up quoting me as saying that someone who turned us down would be failing an IQ test.
[And before anyone starts jumping up and down about that one again, I meant it in the narrow sense of someone who didn't understand that all we have to do is improve a startup's prospects by 6.4% (http://paulgraham.com/equity.html) for the founders to end up net ahead.]
But you can't just blow off the press. The best you can hope for is that if you do a lot of interviews, collectively the resulting articles will form a sort of Giacometti drawing of the truth.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=276229
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=281157
but there have been so many new users lately that I suppose there might be some who didn't realize it.
I'm not sure what the convention should be about identifying YC alumni in link titles. Putting (YC S08) after company names is awkward and only intermittently done. I've considered displaying them in a slightly different color instead. If anyone has other suggestions, let me know.
If part of the problem is labor-intensiveness, I would suggest automating, or semi-automating (where a suspected YC-funded name gets auto-flagged for tag-approval), the tagging process. (Alternate name spellings could be added continuously over time to the auto-flag-list.) This might achieve uniform display with minimal labor expense.
I agree that a different color could reduce the display awkwardness (though I often wonder in such cases if colorblind users will miss the information).
There are people who know how to talk to reporters. It is an established art that is taught to political activists. http://www.google.com/search?q=%22how+to+talk+to+reporters%2...
It is not necessarily the fault of reporters that their published articles are predictably sensationalist. They are controlled, and edited, by editors. Editors are, in turn, controlled by distributions of media-consumers. Consumers control editors control reporters.
According to this article, the IT industry matched the aviation industry for global CO2 emissions in 2007. A regular ol' desktop PC, with regular daily usage (9 to 5), uses about 400kwh of power per year. Servers, being larger/louder/faster than the average PC, and running 24/7, are obviously dramatically more consumptive.
Does that mean there aren't bigger problems that need solving? No, of course not. Automobiles are a huge source of problems and need to be dealt with. But, like CFLs, small changes to high quantities can make a real difference.
If we wanted to be in denial, or assume that only the biggest producers of waste need to change, then one could just write off the carbon footprint of your PC and servers as unimportant. I don't know enough about carbon offsets and such to know what the right thing is here, but I think it's a novel approach to a real problem. Companies with large data centers really are burning a lot of coal and pumping a lot of crap into the air. Sure, their employees are doing even worse on the drive to work...but people need to work on all of those problems, not just the most obvious.
And, of course...before I judge someone who is working on the smaller problem of server carbon footprint, I would have to ask myself what I'm doing that's more useful.
Some questions:
What percentage (LOC-wise) of your program consumes the most time? (hint: it could be really small)
What do you accomplish if the part of your program that takes 1% of total time will run instantly? (hint: not so much)
What are your goals (10% faster, 2 times faster, 100 times faster)? What cost/benefits has each goal?
Are you using the right algorithm? What is time complexity of it; could it be better?
...
Similar speculations could bring light to the question: Are we right to assume that only the biggest producers of waste need to change.
I'm not sure about larger or faster. A lot of web servers are physically smaller (i.e. they fit into 1 rack unit) and less powerful. Have a look at web hosting options. I believe google in particular uses a large number of quite moderately powered units.
And, of course, servers are a more efficient use of power. A modestly loaded server is doing work for hundreds or thousands of users every day, while a desktop PC is only working for one, maybe a handful if it's a communal machine.
Anyway, I don't know the precise numbers, but I would strongly suspect that the average server is using more power per year than the average desktop computer. Could I be wrong about that? Sure. I don't think I am...but even if I were, it doesn't alter the reality of environmental impact of data centers (though I suspect the production stage may be the computer industries real environmental shame).
In terms of greenhouse gases, one Google search is equivalent to about 0.2 grams of CO2. The current EU standard for tailpipe emissions calls for 140 grams of CO2 per kilometer driven, but most cars don't reach that level yet. Thus, the average car driven for one kilometer (0.6 miles for those in the U.S.) produces as many greenhouse gases as a thousand Google searches. </quote> http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/powering-google-searc...
Obviously they have a long way to go...sites like Animoto use much more CO2 per user than Craigslist, and that's very hard to account for in a general way. But to complain that they don't give you credit for how bad the offline version would be is unfair.
Given the fact that there's no consensus yet as to the benefits of a carbon neutral world, don't you think this is premature? Throwing money into a pit that might change something someday... assuming it needs changing in the first place.
That being said, being completely carbon neutral is pretty much impossible given the way our world is currently set up.
Trying to be carbon neutral would have the obvious drawback of significantly slowing economic growth. Is there a benefit to being carbon neutral that outweighs this cost?
1. Rich nations see developing nations growing rapidly, relying, as the rich nations do, on oil, coal, etc etc
2. Rich nations start to demonize and do all they can to force developing nations to stop using coal, gas, etc and only use renewable energy.
3. Rich nations stay rich, poor stay poor.
That seems to be a benefit for rich nations to push such an agenda.
Let us assume that richness is freedom from need.
Also, if the poorer nations are using all the coal+oil, there's going to be less for the rich nations... again, making prices rise.
Is there a benefit to being carbon neutral that outweighs this cost?
I don't honestly know.
However, many many people (including myself) believe that it's a real problem that we need to address. If that were true, you have to grant that CO2stats is a great step in the right direction.
As a company, if you can reduce my energy bill by 20%, I'd be overjoyed. But if you're asking me to spend extra money just to say that I'm contributing to renewable energy, why is that of benefit to me (Apart from having a badge)?
Other comments about cost-benefit analysis also miss the point to a certain degree. Raising awareness is valuable. Feeling good is valuable. That doesn't enter into an individual's cost benefit analysis, but it really matters.
The main critique of I have of CO2stats is that I'd like to see options besides buying energy. I'd like to donate to research into alternative energy, not directly buying current tech.
Donating to research also highlights that there are good options to choose regardless of whether climate change is real.
Isn't it irrelevant in this context? No one is saying, "Computers are bad for the environment...so go get in your car and drive everywhere for everything!" The point of this service is to reduce the carbon footprint of Internet services. We, as an industry, do use power (quite a bit of it), and we do produce waste, so if someone wants to alleviate that by buying carbon credits, for marketing or ethical reasons, it has no relation to opportunity costs of the Internet vs. alternatives.
I don't know the answers to these problems, but it doesn't make sense to blame CO2Stats for not solving problems that they haven't set out to solve.
"The doctor's report accounts for a) your computer viewing the page for X minutes, b) the overall searches per power used by google's datacenters, and c) some other random guessing I'm assuming."
i.e. "It's nice to know that someone else can solve that problem so easily and I benefit directly regardless."
That means that your $10/month account is really only 50 cents worth of offsets, plus $9.50 worth of guilt.
The medieval popes are envious...
In terms of the price at which they sell, it varies on a per ton basis because of their fixed monthly fee structure. http://www.co2stats.com/signup.php $10 per month gets you 100K page views. Based on the stats from my blog, CO2stats equates 100K page views to approximately 500 kilos of CO2. So the cheapest they sell at is $20 per ton but the reality is that it is much higher because most clients wouldn't have 100K page views. For example, if your site gets 10K page views, then you'd be looking at $200 per ton.
But I guess not every company cares what Google thinks off them and they just spit it like it is.
Real ones - like installing solar panels all over the roof. Instead of imaginary "buy carbon offset" ones.
1. I could install solar panels, wind turbines, optimize things, require less servers, energy saving lights etc, reduce my energy bill, and save money.
2. I could pay CO2Stats money, to buy renewable energy certificates, costing me extra money, and not reducing energy usage.
Why would I choose 2 over 1? It just doesn't make any sense to me.
How do solar panels and wind turbines save money?
If you install solar panels, which generate electricity, surely you don't need to spend so much buying electricity?
Does it cost nothing to install solar panels?
"We've made great strides to reduce the energy used by our data centers, but we still want clean and affordable sources of electricity for the power that we do use. In 2008 our philanthropic arm, Google.org, invested $45 million in breakthrough clean energy technologies. And last summer, as part of our Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal initiative (RE<C), we created an internal engineering group dedicated to exploring clean energy.
We're also working with other members of the IT community to improve efficiency on a broader scale. In 2007 we co-founded the Climate Savers Computing Initiative, a group which champions more efficient computing. This non-profit consortium is committed to cutting the energy consumed by computers in half by 2010 — reducing global CO2 emissions by 54 million tons per year. That's a lot of kettles of tea."
Also they have a few solar panels
the conflict of interest is the irritating part.
I'm not saying that buying eco-credits is anywhere near as important as stemming slavery, I'm just saying cost-benefit analysis ignores all qualitative benefits--e.g. clearer skies, lower overall pollution, freedom, etc.
Cost benefit should be considered, but it shouldn't be used to write off major concerns.
The green lobby often measures cost in "oh, we're so rich and privileged anyway and any amount of emissions that's less than before is worth it"... I.e. unrealistic coefficients. We're simply not at the point where a few grams of CO2 here and there is death or survival in 2050.
In reality, society is interested in solutions with the highest reduced emissions pr. cost-unit, but the green lobby don't seem to be too interested in giving those out.
Essentially when making a cost-benefit analysis you need to have a shared understanding of what constitutes costs and benefits.
In the case of slavery the justification puts the costs and benefits on the side of the enslavers, little cost and huge benefit. If you look at the side of the slaves there is the opposite huges cost and no benefit.
This is the same with the environment only in this case I suspect that mostly the people on the other side of the equation are future generation who get a damaged planet but none of the instant pay-off from our wastage.
The people on the other side are indeed the future geenrations. Just that right now, it seems that they will be getting a dysfunctional economy instead.
EX: Pollution from coal fired power plants killed a lot of people in several ways. A dramatic example: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=873954
But, when it comes to less dramatic damage it's easy for them to fight it.
External costs of coal have been quantified by ExternE.
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf68.html
The report of ExternE, a major European study of the external costs of various fuel cycles, focusing on coal and nuclear, was released in 2001 [...] The external costs are defined as those actually incurred in relation to health and the environment and quantifiable but not built into the cost of the electricity to the consumer and therefore which are borne by society at large. They include particularly the effects of air pollution on human health, crop yields and buildings, as well as occupational disease and accidents. [...] The report shows that in clear cash terms nuclear energy incurs about one tenth of the costs of coal. Nuclear energy averages under 0.4 euro cents/kWh (0.2-0.7), less than hydro, coal is over 4.0 cents (2-10 cent averages in different countries), gas ranges 1-4 cents and only wind shows up better than nuclear, at 0.05-0.25 cents/kWh average.
The EU cost of electricity generation without these external costs averages about 4 cents/kWh. If these external costs were in fact included, the EU price of electricity from coal would double and that from gas would increase around 30%. A summary plus access to more recent work is on ExternE web site. http://www.externe.info
If you rtfa, you'd see that the cost benefit analysis is one of the stronger points: How many trips were avoided, how many packages not mailed and how many phone calls not made because of the internet?
Trying to measure one's carbon footprint, and then lessen that footprint is noble. Profiting through some obscure calculation that includes some things but not others is opportunism.
In the context of environmentalism a "cleaner planet" is mostly an intangible because on that scale it mostly doesn't affect anyone directly or fast.
Also it might be nice if you didn't feel the need to call things "retarded". It seems pretty unnecessary.
In the context of environmentalism a "cleaner planet" is mostly an intangible because on that scale it mostly doesn't affect anyone directly or fast.
Then it's the job of those who suggest we worry about it to properly portray effects that are worth worrying about. (BTW, I'm not a climate-change denier, just looking for concrete solutions.)
I called this argument as being "retarded" because it equates those in opposition to carbon credits as morally repugnant, on the same level as slave-traders. That's so extreme it doesn't even make sense.
If you talk to many environmentalist they see it very much as a moral argument. Perhaps it's a different moral level for many of us, but not to everyone.
As such while his argument used an extreme example, I would not consider it as nonsensical.
And that's the problem. They may as well have a Bible in their hands and go knocking on doors.
More people can be swayed by explaining that a particular action has a direct benefit and is therefore more effective than the current one than by saying "repent for the end is near" and "you're a backwards hillbilly who is evil for not seeing this my way".
the point presented is that you can't expect a pure cost/benefit analysis of presenting any real justification, or lack thereof, for an intangible concept. how much, in dollars and cents, is freedom from slavery worth?
And my point is that you can, and should if the actions to be taken are worthwhile.
For instance, a cost/benefit analysis for not having slavery is rather straight forward from the nation's point of view. There are several points in favour of abolition, ( national economic benefit from taxes/increased workers, improved relations and trade with other countries) and few against beyond the direct comfort of the slave owner.
C/B has little to do with dollars and cents and everything thing to do with gaining the best possible outcome from a particular action. This is the entire point that newt0311 was making: The green lobby needs to present a case that shows there are significant benefits (overall) to the costs associated with each of these changes. It's not a hard argument to make, and shouldn't equate being compared to slave-traders.
freedom is not the sum of the value of its effects, nor is a cleaner planet.
What I am saying is that if you intend to take a course of action, and more importantly attempt to convince others that your course is correct, you need to present a proper analysis of the benefits and costs of your option so that they can be compared with the benefits and costs of other actions.
The nobility of abolitionists isn't why 600,000 Americans died in the Civil War. Nobody gave a damn about slaves. The end of slavery is just a fortunate outcome.
So what exactly was the cost/benefit to the conductors of the underground railroad? Sounds like a lot of cost for no personal benefit.
My original point was that cost/benefit analysis can and SHOULD be involved in decision-making processes, but simply looking at emancipation as a 'fortunate outcome' is more than oversimplification.
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In the future, it might be helpful for you to note that making sweeping generalizations usually doesn't help your argument: i.e. "Nobody gave a damn about slaves" really doesn't make me think you're taking a scholarly viewpoint on this debate.
yes, this.
As much as I appreciate river_styx's contribution to the development of River's Law, I really think my mental flight of fancy is superior. Or at the very least would make for a better motivational poster:
"Don't Say 'Retarded', Or She'll Kill You With Her Brain"
Be clear though that I was attacking the argument itself, not the poster.
Not if the externalities are internalized (tautology).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externalities#Possible_Solution...