With yesterday's iPad launch, much ink and more electrons have been spilled speculating on the environmental impact of our reading habits. It's reported that Greenpeace issued a media release critical of the iPad for the electricity it consumes, a portion of which will be generated at fossil-fuel burning generation plants. I read about that critique on a blog that noted Greenpeace did not take into consideration the reams of paper that may be saved if people take to distributing meeting documents on the device1 .
The New York Times carries an opinion piece today comparing the environmental footprint of books and e-readers.
"With e-readers like Apple’s new iPad and Amazon’s Kindle touting their vast libraries of digital titles, some bookworms are bound to wonder if tomes-on-paper will one day become quaint relics. But the question also arises, which is more environmentally friendly: an e-reader or an old-fashioned book?
To find the answer, we turned to life-cycle assessment, which evaluates the ecological impact of any product, at every stage of its existence, from the first tree cut down for paper to the day that hardcover decomposes in the dump. With this method, we can determine the greenest way to read."
link: Op-Chart - How Green Is My iPad? - NYTimes.com
The analysis is simplistic and prone to error, e.g. it does not distinguish between the small. plastic, monochrome Kindle and the 50% larger, metal, colour iPad; it does not consider all the other things for which one might use an iPad or other e-reader which could reduce one's environmental impact; it does not consider differences in size of book, type of paper, etc.
I am inclined to believe, given the "1 e-reader = 100 books" conclusion, that a net-saving in the most likely outcome of switching at least part or my own reading habits to an iPad. While I don't buy anything near 100 books in a year, the potential saving in converting just my Sunday New York Times subscription to electronic delivery should be enough to turn me into a candidate for green sainthood.
- http://www.ipadincanada.ca/ipad-news/19-things-the-ipad-will-absolutely-kill/↩
