Blogs Have a Carbon Footprint?
Like most bloggers, I get a log of blog pitches. As a communications professional, I regularly reach out to bloggers and have led training sessions on blogger relations. When I get a good pitch, I generally email the person to thank them. Most of the time, they are simply horrible.
Today, I got a pitch that shows what happens when a Google search for certain keywords is done without looking at the context of those keywords. Given my recent comments on climate change, I’m not the best candidate to approach about this. I hope the language barrier was an issue, but Christin uses perfect English in her pitch. Also, generic blog pitches are never the best way to go.
How does a blog have CO2 emission of 8 lbs per year? A blog doesn’t exist outside of cyberspace. There are no physical properties to a blog. I’m all for planting trees. As a conservationist and nature lover, please plant more of them, but do it to simply plant a tree. Don’t approach me about planting a tree to eliminate virtual carbon footprints.
Hi Adrienne,
I just stumbled over your blog http://adrienneroyer.com/ – nice work!
I am part of a young team in Germany, working for an initiative called “Make it green!”. Our goal is to contribute our part in reducing the carbon footprint by raising awareness of the severe environmental damage caused by carbon emissions. One of our activities is to raise awareness of the carbon emissions resulting from the use of the internet – specifically of blogs. A blog with 15,000 visits a month has a yearly carbon dioxide emissions of 8lb. To neutralise these emissions we have created “My blog is carbon neutral” buttons so bloggers can demonstrate that they care about the environment and the carbon footprint of their blogs. We present them a small but nontheless worthy solution to contribute to environmental issues. Our idea is to show possibilities to make a contribution to protect the environment.
To find out how you can participate please visit http://www.kaufda.de/umwelt/carbon-neutral/how-you-can-join
And how do we actually neutralize your blog’s carbon footprint? We are planting trees in cooperation with the Arbor Day Foundation in Plumas National Forest in Northern California for our project to neutralize the carbon footprint of blogs. Thousands of wildfires burned down many national forests over the past ten years and 88.000 acres of Plumas’ were destroyed by two fires in 2007. To help replanting we need the support of bloggers all over the world! For every participating blog we plant a tree. One blog – one tree.
Why do we do this? We are a German based company called kaufDA, which provides advertisement brochures of local stores online to help consumers search for specific products and find good deals in their neighborhood. This reduces the amount of brochures printed and so the project helps the environment by reducing unnecessary paper in mailboxes. An American on average receives 41 pounds of junk mail per year. This has the same carbon footprint as burning six gallons of gasoline.
We’d be glad to plant your tree! Help us and show that you care! Every tree counts!
Best wishes from Germany,
Christin
“Make it green!”- Team
Tags: Arbor Day, bad blog pitches, climate change, social media
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March 12th, 2010 at 11:35 pm
Seems kind of obvious – The internet uses electricity. Generation of electricity (usually) causes carbon emissions. Storing, processing, accessing a blog, sending the signals back and forth, etc. does cause carbon emissions, although I suspect 8 lbs is a completely arbitrary number. I am not “Green”, I have never hugged a tree, and I believe the purpose of the Warmist Carbon-Cult is solely to extract money from suckers, however the fact that Eco-Hippie Green-Fanatic companies such as Google, Yahoo, etc. are responsible for pumping Ginormous amounts of carbon into the atmosphere each year by the internet traffic they create and the resulting power consumption just gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling.
March 13th, 2010 at 2:10 pm
No, it’s not that obvious. If carbon footprints are to be taken seriously, the user has a carbon footprint. Inanimate objects cannot. Since a blog does not exist unless I click on a link and read it, it can’t use power or electricity. I have a carbon footprint, but my blog does not.
Based on this model, the owner/writer of a blog bears the burden of the traffic. That’s like asking car manufacturers to pay for the gas of all the cars that they build after they sell them to individuals. If I did agree with the concept of carbon footprints, I am responsible for the energy and resources used to write this blog and the visits to websites that I take. Since people visit my blog of their own free will, I am not responsible for any energy or carbon emissions that they generate.
I agree with you that the purpose of the climate change community is to attack the wealthy and those with resources. The Green movement is another political/cultural outgrowth of the New Left, which was founded by socialists in the 20s and 30s in the US.
The Green movement seeks to redistribute wealth and attack capitalists through efforts like Cap and Trade and carbon offsets. These taxes or voluntary contributions are paid by the Haves, to use an Alinsky reference, and given to the Federal government or nonprofits to be funneled to the Have-nots. Just as feminism is the gender version of Marxism, Greens are the environmental arm of the socialist movement.
March 14th, 2010 at 12:42 am
I see your point, that the blog is inanimate, and essentially just a concept, and cannot make choices, and that consequences, such as a carbon footprint, must inevitably result from choices, which can only be made by real people. Quite so, and I should have caught on quicker, since I have often made what I think is a very similar argument to those who seem to think that companies pay taxes, or incur expenses (such as huge court settlements, or losses due to theft). The opinion expressed by such people is usually along the lines of “I would never cheat a person, but it’s OK if I cheat a company” or “The government should tax big companies, not us regular folks”. There is, of course, really no such thing as a company – it is a concept, nothing more than a convenient way of organizing peoples relationships in our minds – all taxes are, of course, paid by people, all losses from theft are lost by people, whether the stockholders, employees, private owners, other customers, suppliers or whatever. I’ll try to have more sympathy in the future for those who think that companies exist apart form people, now that I’ve essentially fallen victim to the same fallacy myself.
March 14th, 2010 at 3:09 pm
Blogs exist on servers somewhere in the world using power to store the data, even if no one reads them.
March 14th, 2010 at 4:23 pm
Technically, that would then be the carbon footprint of the server farm.
March 14th, 2010 at 10:05 pm
That is ridiculous, blogs don’t have any carbon footprint.
March 18th, 2010 at 8:52 pm
So, then, the great existential question: Is the blog a concept, comprised of the thoughts and ideas presented on it, and pondered in the minds of its readers and writers, or is it the electrons and the equipment upon which those concepts are stored and patterned? And, if so, what kind of nutz would pay some German kids to claim to have planted a tree somewhere, which may or may not have gotten planted anyway, to somehow, based on something only marginally resembling science, offset the claimed threat, based on proven fraudulent data input into flawed models from biased measurements, of potential imaginary weather in an inherently unpredictable climate?
Tell you what, next time I pass a wishing well, I’ll throw a few pennies in on your behalf – consider the carbon footprint of your blog as having been matched by the carbon offset of my wish!