I strongly encourage those who are interested in this to create a proposal for strategic planning consideration... Http://strategy.Wikimedia.org .
The strategic planning initiative is thinking about the wmf's next five years... This type of conversation is very welcome there. ---------------------------- Philippe Beaudette phili...@wikimedia.org On Dec 14, 2009, at 12:50 AM, Tim Starling <tstarl...@wikimedia.org> wrote: > Teofilo wrote: >> You have probably heard about CO2 and the conference being held these >> days in Copenhagen (1). >> >> You have probably heard about the goal of carbon neutrality at the >> Wikimania conference in Gdansk in July 2010 (2). >> >> You may want to discuss the basic and perhaps naive wishes I have >> written down on the strategy wiki about paper consumption (3). > > Paper production has a net negative impact on atmospheric CO2 > concentration if the wood comes from a sustainably managed forest or > plantation. As long as people keep their PediaPress books for a long > time, or dispose of them in a way that does not produce methane, then > I don't see a problem. > >> Do we have an idea of the energy consumption related to the online >> access to a Wikipedia article ? Some people say that a few minutes >> long search on a search engine costs as much energy as boiling water >> for a cup of tea : is that story true in the case of Wikipedia (4) ? > > No, it is not true, which makes what I'm about to suggest somewhat > more affordable. > > Given the lack of political will to make deep cuts to greenhouse gas > emissions, and the pitiful excuses politicians make for inaction; > given the present nature of the debate, where special interests fund > campaigns aimed at stalling any progress by appealing to the ignorance > of the public; given the nature of the Foundation, an organisation > which raises its funds and conducts most of its activities in the > richest and most polluting country in the world: I think there is an > argument for voluntary reduction of emissions by the Foundation. > > I don't mean by buying tree-planting or efficiency offsets, of which I > am deeply skeptical. I think the best way for Wikimedia to take action > on climate change would be by buying renewable energy certificates > (RECs). Buying RECs from new wind and solar electricity generators is > a robust way to reduce CO2 emissions, with minimal danger of > double-counting, forward-selling, outright fraud, etc., problems which > plague the offset industry. > > If Domas's figure of 100 kW is correct, then buying a matching number > of RECs would be a small portion of our hosting budget. If funding is > nevertheless a problem, then we could have a restricted donation > drive, and thereby get a clear mandate from our reader community. > > Our colocation facilities would not need to do anything, such as > changing their electricity provider. We would, however, need > monitoring of our total electricity usage, so that we would know how > many RECs to buy. > > I'm not appealing to the PR benefits here, or to the way this action > would promote the climate change cause in general. I'm just saying > that as an organisation composed of rational, moral people, Wikimedia > has as much responsibility to act as does any other organisation or > individual. > > Ultimately, the US will need to reduce its per-capita emissions by > around 90% by 2050 to have any hope of avoiding catastrophe (see e.g. > [1]). Nature doesn't have exemptions or loopholes, we can't continue > emitting by moving economic activity from corporations to charities. > > > [1] <http://www.garnautreview.org.au/chp9.htm#tab9_3>, and see chapter > 4.3 for the impacts of 550 case. > > -- Tim Starling > > > _______________________________________________ > foundation-l mailing list > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l