Re: We need to define a path for Debian to climate neutrality

[Charles Plessy]

Le Wed, Sep 21, 2022 at 06:49:59AM +0100, Jonathan Dowland a écrit :
> On Wed, Apr 20, 2022 at 10:36:34AM +0100, Jonathan Dowland wrote:
> > Other early steps should include establishing a sub-project/group to
> > coordinate discussion and actions around the issue.
> 
> I still think this. Perhaps starting with a dedicated mailing list;
> debian-sustainability or debian-climate or debian-?

Hi Jonathan,

I think that such a list could be very useful and I would join it,
hoping that eventually I will learn or acheive something that will
help to reduce the environmental footprint of my research center.

Just to clarify, in your opinion would each of the following topics be
appropriate on this list ?

 - Reducing the environmental footprint of the Debian project.
 - Reducing the environmental footprint of systems running Debian.
 - Using Debian to reduce the environmental footprint of individual or
   societies.

If the answer is no, I would recommend to pick a name that clearly hints
to the preferred topic.

Have a nice day,

Charles

-- 
Charles Plessy Nagahama, Yomitan, Okinawa, Japan
Debian Med packaging team http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-med
Tooting from work,   https://mastodon.technology/@charles_plessy
Tooting from home, https://framapiaf.org/@charles_plessy

Re: We need to define a path for Debian to climate neutrality

[Martin]

On 2022-09-21 06:49, Jonathan Dowland wrote:
> I still think this. Perhaps starting with a dedicated mailing list;
> debian-sustainability or debian-climate or debian-?
>
> Does anyone interested in this topic feel strongly for or against the
> idea of creating a list to discuss taking it further?

I don't feel strongly about it, but I would subscribe.

Re: We need to define a path for Debian to climate neutrality

[Jonathan Dowland]

On Wed, Apr 20, 2022 at 10:36:34AM +0100, Jonathan Dowland wrote:

Other early steps should include establishing a sub-project/group to
coordinate discussion and actions around the issue.


I still think this. Perhaps starting with a dedicated mailing list;
debian-sustainability or debian-climate or debian-?

Does anyone interested in this topic feel strongly for or against the
idea of creating a list to discuss taking it further?


Thanks,

--
Please do not CC me for listmail.

👱🏻  Jonathan Dowland
✎j...@debian.org
🔗   https://jmtd.net

Re: We need to define a path for Debian to climate neutrality

[Didier 'OdyX' Raboud]

Le vendredi, 13 mai 2022, 17.38:13 h CEST Thomas Goirand a écrit :
> Most of the time, "green energy" is just "green washing". If you buy
> "green energy" in France or Swiss (these are the only places I know for
> sure what's going on), you get a higher electricity bill, and a slot in
> the green energy consumers. But the electricity may well come from the
> nearby coal power plant, even if you bought a slot of green electricity.

Electricity on wires is like water in tubes; it might be "green", but tastes 
equal. [0] What matters is what provider your payment gets wired to. The point 
of buying "green" energy is not to guarantee its provenance in your plug, it's 
to guarantee that the "green" providers get compensated for your energy 
consumption.

It doesn't make any sense to build separated electricity transport networks, 
to avoid accusations of "green washing".

It _does_ make sense to direct consumer energy bills' money to sustainable 
producers.

-- 
OdyX

[0] I know I know, water systems are usually way less interconnected than 
electricity networks, and water doesn't taste universally equal.

Re: We need to define a path for Debian to climate neutrality

[tomas]

On Fri, May 13, 2022 at 05:38:13PM +0200, Thomas Goirand wrote:
> On 4/8/22 20:35, Julian Andres Klode wrote:
> > Sponsors: When receiving sponsored resources like electricity, we
> > should inquire about the carbon footprint of those resources, and
> > what the sponsor's approach to environmental affairs is.
> 
> Most of the time, "green energy" is just "green washing". If you buy "green
> energy" in France or Swiss (these are the only places I know for sure what's
> going on), you get a higher electricity bill, and a slot in the green energy
> consumers. But the electricity may well come from the nearby coal power
> plant, even if you bought a slot of green electricity.

Proof? References? I'm in Germany, and for the time I got
to decide, I chose a 100% renewable electricity provider.
I'm happy to know that my bill goes to someone deploying
renewable generation instead of coal plants.

I do believe them. If they get caught cheating, they can
say good-bye to their business. Whether "the electricity
comes from the nearby coal plant" -- the electrons never
leave the building, as you might know [0] :-)

It's about what investments your bill goes to, as I said
above.

> IMO, you're much better off fighting this at another level: lobbying your
> government to do what you think is right.

We gotta do both, I think.

> > Budget: We need to determine our current CO2 emissions as a project,
> > and then define a roadmap to carbon neutrality by an acceptable date,
> > I think 2035 or 2040 are commonly referenced. This is likely to be
> > exponential. We should use project funds to hire an expert consulting
> > firm to do this for us.
> 
> If I had my say, I would vote against (wasting) money for such an expert,
> and wasting contributor time on this. I'm tired of reading about CO2
> emission in the data center, when old servers are just trashed, and when
> electricity production is out of the control of the data center owner (see
> above).

You just put some assertions without backing them up in any way. And,
by the way: perhaps there are experts out there willing to do some
pro bono work for Debian.

> I pushed my company to recycle old server and re-use them as long as
> possible, and we went from a 10 years lifetime to 15. That's IMO a much
> nicer and efficient approach for protecting the environment than just the
> green-washing CO2 propaganda.

Another unwarranted slur. A computer has a lifecycle, and it makes
sense to take all into account. It does make sense to re-use for
some time, but it also does make sense to take the power consumption
into account (more modern servers tend to have better MIPS/power
ratios). This [1] source (alas, not dated -- copyright is 2022), for
example says that energy use is 34% of a computer's lifecycle.

> > Monitoring: Once we have determined our CO2 emissions and defined a
> > roadmap, we need to constantly monitor our CO2 emissions to make sure
> > we stay on target. I propose quarterly environmental impact reports.
> 
> A quarterly environmental impact that only takes CO2 into account is only
> part of the reality. Do you have any idea about the environmental impact of
> mining these rare minerals needed to produce a server? Another example:
> producing the aluminum needed for a server chassis use a huge amount of
> electricity.

Well, "huge" is not a number. There are studies out there (I tried to
provide an example) which try to get down to more concrete figures.

I think actually trying to assess "where are we" and "where do we want
to go" is a very commendable goal. I'm happy that people are trying.

Cheers

[0] If I remember correctly, electrons in copper move in the rough
   ballpark of 10^-6 m/s, so at 50 Hz they just wiggle around about
   1/50th of a micron. But my physics are pretty old, so glad to
   be corrected :-)

[1] https://sustainablecomputing.umich.edu/knowledge/life-cycle.php
-- 
t


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Re: We need to define a path for Debian to climate neutrality

[Thomas Goirand]

On 4/8/22 20:35, Julian Andres Klode wrote:

Sponsors: When receiving sponsored resources like electricity, we
should inquire about the carbon footprint of those resources, and
what the sponsor's approach to environmental affairs is.


Most of the time, "green energy" is just "green washing". If you buy 
"green energy" in France or Swiss (these are the only places I know for 
sure what's going on), you get a higher electricity bill, and a slot in 
the green energy consumers. But the electricity may well come from the 
nearby coal power plant, even if you bought a slot of green electricity.


IMO, you're much better off fighting this at another level: lobbying 
your government to do what you think is right.



Budget: We need to determine our current CO2 emissions as a project,
and then define a roadmap to carbon neutrality by an acceptable date,
I think 2035 or 2040 are commonly referenced. This is likely to be
exponential. We should use project funds to hire an expert consulting
firm to do this for us.


If I had my say, I would vote against (wasting) money for such an 
expert, and wasting contributor time on this. I'm tired of reading about 
CO2 emission in the data center, when old servers are just trashed, and 
when electricity production is out of the control of the data center 
owner (see above).


I pushed my company to recycle old server and re-use them as long as 
possible, and we went from a 10 years lifetime to 15. That's IMO a much 
nicer and efficient approach for protecting the environment than just 
the green-washing CO2 propaganda.



Monitoring: Once we have determined our CO2 emissions and defined a
roadmap, we need to constantly monitor our CO2 emissions to make sure
we stay on target. I propose quarterly environmental impact reports.


A quarterly environmental impact that only takes CO2 into account is 
only part of the reality. Do you have any idea about the environmental 
impact of mining these rare minerals needed to produce a server? Another 
example: producing the aluminum needed for a server chassis use a huge 
amount of electricity.


Cheers,

Thomas Goirand (zigo)

Re: We need to define a path for Debian to climate neutrality

[Julian Andres Klode]

On Thu, Apr 21, 2022 at 11:38:20AM +0800, Paul Wise wrote:
> On Fri, 2022-04-08 at 20:35 +0200, Julian Andres Klode wrote:
> 
> > Budget: We need to determine our current CO2 emissions as a project,
> > and then define a roadmap to carbon neutrality by an acceptable date,
> 
> I would be wary of the legitimacy and effectiveness of carbon offset
> products. In Australia the carbon credit/offset scheme was recently
> revealed to be fraudulent in many cases and I would not be surprised if
> it were found to be similar in other countries. I think a better path
> would be to work on transitioning our energy usage to renewable sources
> and reducing our energy requirements.

You only compensate what you can't transform, in any case. Either via
Gold Standard projects or buying away CO2 emission rights from the
industry (if available).

-- 
debian developer - deb.li/jak | jak-linux.org - free software dev
ubuntu core developer  i speak de, en


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Re: We need to define a path for Debian to climate neutrality

[tomas]

On Fri, Apr 29, 2022 at 09:19:33AM +0200, Andreas Tille wrote:
> Am Wed, Apr 13, 2022 at 10:20:16AM -0700 schrieb Russ Allbery:
> > This also has the advantage that, whether or not the specific framing of
> > this thread is inspiring to a given Debian contributor, everyone wants
> > longer laptop battery life and lower power bills for their data centers.
> 
> While I personally absolutely subscribe the need to reduce the carbon
> footprint I think we should focus on those points (battery life and
> power bill) since this also gets those persons on our side who do not
> believe in climate crisis.  I mean, it does not really matter why people 
> behave correctly as long as they do so.  Thus I personally focus on
> putting rather those terms in the subject.

I don't know. I wouldn't recommend doing it "instead", just to not
scare off hypothetical climate change deniers. Although I think it
is a very good idea to mention those points: the project is so big
that every little synergy is worth a ton (of CO₂ :)

Cheers
-- 
t


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Re: We need to define a path for Debian to climate neutrality

[Andreas Tille]

Am Wed, Apr 13, 2022 at 10:20:16AM -0700 schrieb Russ Allbery:
> This also has the advantage that, whether or not the specific framing of
> this thread is inspiring to a given Debian contributor, everyone wants
> longer laptop battery life and lower power bills for their data centers.

While I personally absolutely subscribe the need to reduce the carbon
footprint I think we should focus on those points (battery life and
power bill) since this also gets those persons on our side who do not
believe in climate crisis.  I mean, it does not really matter why people 
behave correctly as long as they do so.  Thus I personally focus on
putting rather those terms in the subject.

Kind regards

  Andreas.

-- 
http://fam-tille.de

Re: We need to define a path for Debian to climate neutrality

[Charles Plessy]

Le Thu, Apr 21, 2022 at 11:38:20AM +0800, Paul Wise a écrit :
> 
> I would be wary of the legitimacy and effectiveness of carbon offset
> products. In Australia the carbon credit/offset scheme was recently
> revealed to be fraudulent in many cases and I would not be surprised if
> it were found to be similar in other countries. I think a better path
> would be to work on transitioning our energy usage to renewable sources
> and reducing our energy requirements.

I fully agree.  I recently started to assess my own energy consumption
(in joules which is the International System of Units standard; but note
that 1 kWh = 3.6 MJ by definition) and found it to be way more
straightforward than estimating CO2 emissions, while at the same time
being very useful to provide estimates of scales (to decide where to put
the efforts) and of success (how much reduction is achieved).  And
reduction is a simple but impactful goal, as reduction of polluting
energy is a gain, and reduction of green energy used by ones is an
opportunity for others to replace polluting energy by the green one
being saved.

I work in a university of science and technology where high-performance
computing is among our heavy equipments, and I calculated that the
energy I spend at work is one order of magnitude higher than what I
spend in my private life, even including intercontinental flights to
visit my family.  I would be very excited to find a way to know if
efforts such as reducing container size or passing -O3 to the scientific
software we package has any chance to make a visible impact on how we
can reduce the environmental cost of our research.

Have a nice day,

Charles

-- 
Charles Plessy Nagahama, Yomitan, Okinawa, Japan
Debian Med packaging team http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-med
Tooting from work,   https://mastodon.technology/@charles_plessy
Tooting from home, https://framapiaf.org/@charles_plessy

Re: We need to define a path for Debian to climate neutrality

[Paul Wise]

On Fri, 2022-04-08 at 20:35 +0200, Julian Andres Klode wrote:

> Budget: We need to determine our current CO2 emissions as a project,
> and then define a roadmap to carbon neutrality by an acceptable date,

I would be wary of the legitimacy and effectiveness of carbon offset
products. In Australia the carbon credit/offset scheme was recently
revealed to be fraudulent in many cases and I would not be surprised if
it were found to be similar in other countries. I think a better path
would be to work on transitioning our energy usage to renewable sources
and reducing our energy requirements.

-- 
bye,
pabs

https://wiki.debian.org/PaulWise


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Re: We need to define a path for Debian to climate neutrality

[Martin]

On 2022-04-13 11:01, Sandro Tosi wrote:
> please do not transform Debian in an activist project (i wont comment
> on the carbon neutrality proposal). Debian has one goal: provide a
> universal operating system. this is where it starts and this is where
> it ends, and that's all the "else" that we can do.
>
> You're free to support all your passions, missions and projects
> OUTSIDE of Debian. The Debian project is not your echo chamber for
> your activism.

I agree with your proposition, that Debian should focus on its goal to
provide a universal operating system. It should not become an activist
group for purposes other than free software. Debian must not participate
in occupying forrests or blocking motorways.

However, I do not see, that if Debian tries to become "carbon neutral"
(or better: just not too bad for the environment) itself, this would be
activism of any form. None of Julians ideas sound like activism to me,
but more like what some companies start to do right now.

I suggest to form an informal team first, where people can gather ideas.
Julian, maybe you can organise a BoF at DebConf about this issue?
I'll be there and be assured, I'll travel by train.

Cheers

Re: We need to define a path for Debian to climate neutrality

[Jonathan Dowland]

On Sun, Apr 10, 2022 at 11:22:24AM -0400, micah anderson wrote:

On 2022-04-08 20:35:27, Julian Andres Klode wrote:

it just occurred to me that despite the climate crisis about to
destroy us all we don't really have anything in place to monitor
and reduce our carbon emissions.


Agreed.


I believe we need to commit ourselves to reducing this, but I fear


Also, agreed.


+1 from me!


I think Debian should commit to become carbon neutral, and then become
climate positive, and make that clear to others so that it may encourage
other projects to do the same.

I think the path to doing this starts with the commitment from the
project. If we can get that commitment, then we are a long ways towards
making this happen.


Other early steps should include establishing a sub-project/group to
coordinate discussion and actions around the issue.


Then it is about determining the organization's carbon footprint. There
are organizations that can assist in determining this (eg. Offsetra).


I think this is a big part of the work required: but, the other side of
it is the software we provide that is used by others. An improvement on
that side of things would have a great deal more impact than on our own
infrastructure.


Finally, deciding on a way to reconcile that footprint. This may be the
contentious aspect, as not everyone will agree that the different
mechanisms that exist are the right ways to do this, but perhaps we can
delay this discussion until it is clear that Debian is committed to
making this happen.


Makes sense to me.

--
Please do not CC me for listmail.

👱🏻  Jonathan Dowland
✎j...@debian.org
🔗   https://jmtd.net

Re: We need to define a path for Debian to climate neutrality

[Gard Spreemann]

Hi. I do share your worry and your overall sentiment, but:

Julian Andres Klode  writes:

> For example, people could be encouraged to batch bug fixes into larger
> uploads rather than uploading them immediately, use compression
> algorithms that emit less CO2.

I suspect that if every DD who spent any extra time doing this batching
instead worked those extra minutes at $dayjob and donated one percent of
their extra income to the right place would do more to mitigate climate
change. Or if they just distracted someone in the street and had them
stop streaming TikTok for a mere second :-)

I really don't mean to criticize a well-meaning desire to do something
about a terrible problem, but I think we must be vary of approaches that
fiddle with the margins of the problem instead of making real strides.


Just my two øre.


 Best,
 Gard


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Re: We need to define a path for Debian to climate neutrality

[Russ Allbery]

Davide Prina  writes:

> So, I think that if Debian must think about climate change, probably it
> must be focused on energy efficiency to gain more results.

I agree that energy efficiency is probably the place where we could most
directly contribute as a project while focusing on the things that we're
all good at.  (I'm not discounting also talking about how we manage
conferences and travel, but that's more "we exist in the world" territory
rather than the core focus of the project.)

A somewhat tedious and not-sexy but possibly effective place that we could
focus is on ensuring modern power management features are correctly
enabled and working properly in Debian installations out of the box.  My
understanding is that Linux has gained quite a few facilities for reducing
power consumption, not all of them are automatic, and there are some
complex interactions with other system components such as the desktop
environment.  There may be some low-hanging fruit here that would help
Debian consume less power by default, or places where there is no one
right decision but we could provide a low-power option to users who want
it.

This also has the advantage that, whether or not the specific framing of
this thread is inspiring to a given Debian contributor, everyone wants
longer laptop battery life and lower power bills for their data centers.

-- 
Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org)  

Re: We need to define a path for Debian to climate neutrality

[Steffen Möller]

On 13.04.22 17:29, Steffen Möller wrote:


On 13.04.22 17:01, Sandro Tosi wrote:

While I see no problem with the services of Debian to turn carbon
neutral, Debian should think of ways not to end here. What else
could we do?

please do not transform Debian in an activist project (i wont comment
on the carbon neutrality proposal). Debian has one goal: provide a
universal operating system. this is where it starts and this is where
it ends, and that's all the "else" that we can do.

You have a point. And I can agree that Debian should not do anything
that is not part of being an universal operating system.

I have seen more heated (pun intended) discussions on Debian's lists
than this one.

You're free to support all your passions, missions and projects
OUTSIDE of Debian. The Debian project is not your echo chamber for
your activism.


Let me rephrase this. What else can a universal operating system do for
climate neutrality?


Was hoping for some external input. To mind come:
 * monitoring systems (I know of a provider of professional wind
turbine monitoring systems that reside on the wind turbines and run Debian)
 * billing systems for community-organised shared resources

I presume that most software tools that ship with inverters, power walls
etc are just accessible via some web interface. Nothing too much for us
to do, I presume. But whenever there is an Open API etc we could
possible point to such a Debian-compatibility.

Cheers,

Steffen

Re: We need to define a path for Debian to climate neutrality

[Steve Langasek]

On Wed, Apr 13, 2022 at 11:01:04AM -0400, Sandro Tosi wrote:
> > While I see no problem with the services of Debian to turn carbon
> > neutral, Debian should think of ways not to end here. What else could we do?

> please do not transform Debian in an activist project (i wont comment
> on the carbon neutrality proposal). Debian has one goal: provide a
> universal operating system. this is where it starts and this is where
> it ends, and that's all the "else" that we can do.

> You're free to support all your passions, missions and projects
> OUTSIDE of Debian. The Debian project is not your echo chamber for
> your activism.

I guess our users stop being a priority when they die by the millions due to
the disruption of our climate.

-- 
Steve Langasek   Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
Debian Developer   to set it on, and I can move the world.
Ubuntu Developer   https://www.debian.org/
slanga...@ubuntu.com vor...@debian.org


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Re: We need to define a path for Debian to climate neutrality

[Roberto C . Sánchez]

On Wed, Apr 13, 2022 at 11:01:04AM -0400, Sandro Tosi wrote:
> > While I see no problem with the services of Debian to turn carbon
> > neutral, Debian should think of ways not to end here. What else could we do?
> 
> please do not transform Debian in an activist project (i wont comment
> on the carbon neutrality proposal). Debian has one goal: provide a
> universal operating system. this is where it starts and this is where
> it ends, and that's all the "else" that we can do.
> 
> You're free to support all your passions, missions and projects
> OUTSIDE of Debian. The Debian project is not your echo chamber for
> your activism.
> 
Thank you for posting this.  I did not respond to the initial message
because it was difficult for me to do so constructively.  You have
captured the essence of how I feel about this.  Let's remain focused on
the main goal.

Regards,

-Roberto
-- 
Roberto C. Sánchez

Re: We need to define a path for Debian to climate neutrality

[Steffen Möller]

On 13.04.22 17:01, Sandro Tosi wrote:

While I see no problem with the services of Debian to turn carbon
neutral, Debian should think of ways not to end here. What else could we do?

please do not transform Debian in an activist project (i wont comment
on the carbon neutrality proposal). Debian has one goal: provide a
universal operating system. this is where it starts and this is where
it ends, and that's all the "else" that we can do.

You have a point. And I can agree that Debian should not do anything
that is not part of being an universal operating system.

You're free to support all your passions, missions and projects
OUTSIDE of Debian. The Debian project is not your echo chamber for
your activism.


Let me rephrase this. What else can a universal operating system do for
climate neutrality?

Steffen

Re: We need to define a path for Debian to climate neutrality

[Sandro Tosi]

> While I see no problem with the services of Debian to turn carbon
> neutral, Debian should think of ways not to end here. What else could we do?

please do not transform Debian in an activist project (i wont comment
on the carbon neutrality proposal). Debian has one goal: provide a
universal operating system. this is where it starts and this is where
it ends, and that's all the "else" that we can do.

You're free to support all your passions, missions and projects
OUTSIDE of Debian. The Debian project is not your echo chamber for
your activism.

Thanks,
-- 
Sandro "morph" Tosi
My website: http://sandrotosi.me/
Me at Debian: http://wiki.debian.org/SandroTosi
Twitter: https://twitter.com/sandrotosi

Re: We need to define a path for Debian to climate neutrality

[Steffen Möller]

The idea is good.

There is Debian as an organisation that could immediately shift activity
towards renewable resources. There are carbon neutral compute centers.
And there is something close to carbon neutral travel if investing extra
money in these tree planing institutions.

An interesting reference is IKEA
(https://www.triplepundit.com/story/2021/ikea-renewable-energy/718146),
producing more solar energy than it uses.

While I see no problem with the services of Debian to turn carbon
neutral, Debian should think of ways not to end here. What else could we do?

Steffen

Re: We need to define a path for Debian to climate neutrality

[Adrian Bunk]

On Fri, Apr 08, 2022 at 08:35:27PM +0200, Julian Andres Klode wrote:
> Hi
> 
> it just occurred to me that despite the climate crisis about to
> destroy us all we don't really have anything in place to monitor
> and reduce our carbon emissions.
> 
> I believe we need to commit ourselves to reducing this, but I fear
> the only way this could happen is via a general resolution amending
> the constitution for climate goals, so it becomes binding.

I do have a problem with your approach of demanding strong action.

Combined with your refusal to apply it where it might not be convenient
for you.

Your principles do not matter much when you are demanding something from 
other people.

Your principles do matter when they are inconvenient for YOU.

>...
> # Actions
>...
> Budget: We need to determine our current CO2 emissions as a project,
> and then define a roadmap to carbon neutrality by an acceptable date,
> I think 2035 or 2040 are commonly referenced.

If your goal is only carbon neutrality in 2035 or 2040,
there is no discussion required from us before 2030.

If your roadmap should already include short-term reductions,
an obvious low-hanging fruit will be not to cause hundreds of
people from all over the world to fly to India in 2023.

>...
> # Things out of our control
> 
> I think individual travel to DebConf and similar events is somewhat
> out of our control, as is the personal behavior of individual
> submitters.

Debian paying for plane travel is 100% inside the control of Debian.
A policy that Debian no longer pays for plane travel would be an
obvious first step.

Abolishing DebConf bursaries for plane travel would not even require
a general resolution.

How to hold conferences is also completely inside the control of Debian.

It would not even require a general resolution for the DebConf team to 
decide that DebConf is no longer held in-person to reduce our carbon 
emissions.

A "binding general resolution amending the constitution for climate 
goals" implies abolishing support by Debian for in-person conferences.[1]
Otherwise it would be like the deplorable corporate greenwashing 
practices by deplorable managers who are claiming to support climate 
goals while refusing to take any action that might reduce their profits.

cu
Adrian

[1] An exemption for already confirmed DebConfs might be appropriate.

Re: We need to define a path for Debian to climate neutrality

[micah anderson]

On 2022-04-08 20:35:27, Julian Andres Klode wrote:
> it just occurred to me that despite the climate crisis about to
> destroy us all we don't really have anything in place to monitor
> and reduce our carbon emissions.

Agreed.

> I believe we need to commit ourselves to reducing this, but I fear

Also, agreed.

I think Debian should commit to become carbon neutral, and then become
climate positive, and make that clear to others so that it may encourage
other projects to do the same.

I think the path to doing this starts with the commitment from the
project. If we can get that commitment, then we are a long ways towards
making this happen.

Then it is about determining the organization's carbon footprint. There
are organizations that can assist in determining this (eg. Offsetra).

Finally, deciding on a way to reconcile that footprint. This may be the
contentious aspect, as not everyone will agree that the different
mechanisms that exist are the right ways to do this, but perhaps we can
delay this discussion until it is clear that Debian is committed to
making this happen.

micah

Re: We need to define a path for Debian to climate neutrality

[Davide Prina]

On 08/04/22 20:35, Julian Andres Klode wrote:

Hi

it just occurred to me that despite the climate crisis about to
destroy us all we don't really have anything in place to monitor
and reduce our carbon emissions.

I believe we need to commit ourselves to reducing this


in Italian user list we have discussed this topic from another point of 
view: program language used and how it is used.


Starting from this 2017 study
https://greenlab.di.uminho.pt/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/sleFinal.pdf

you can see that you can consume more or less energy depending of the 
program language selected for implementing a program.


In the study, in 2017, they have found that in the test program you consume:
1.00 C
1.03 Rust
1.34 C++
1.70 Ada
1.98 Java
2.14 Pascal
2.18 Chapel
2.27 Lisp
2.40 Ocalm
2.52 Fortran
...
3.14 C#
3.23 Go
...
4.45 JavaScript
...
21.50 TypeScript
...
29.30 PHP
...
46.54 JRuby
69.91 Ruby
75.88 Python
79.58 Perl

so a program in Perl consume 79.58 time energy that the same program in 
C. Naturally the program must be written in the same "way".


Rewriting a program in another language can be a very bad solution... 
probably some part of the program can be written in another program 
language that use less energy... but also this can be a bad solution.


Rewriting a program that is used only few second, that is executed 
sporadically and is written in Perl is a non sense because don't reduce 
energy usage too much and the effort, to do that, can be too much.


If you go to the university site you can see that there are a lot of 
article and study:

https://greenlab.di.uminho.pt/

for example they have taken some app and modified the source to consume 
less energy, gaining about 40% of energy reduction.


In the tools section
https://github.com/greensoftwarelab/Energy-Languages

there is also a sonarcube plugin to calculate programs energy debt.

I think that this can be a better solution: have something that 
calculate the energy debt of all programs and a number that indicate the 
average usage in a machine to calculate how much energy per 
server/desktop he can consume less.


Also: Datacenter consume about 1% of all our planet energy
https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/global-data-centre-energy-demand-by-data-centre-type-2010-2022
https://www.iea.org/reports/data-centres-and-data-transmission-networks

Also: KDE Eco - Building Energy-Efficient Free Software
where German Environment Agency give a released the award criteria for 
obtaining eco-certification with the Blauer Engel label for desktop software

https://eco.kde.org/

So, I think that if Debian must think about climate change, probably it 
must be focused on energy efficiency to gain more results.


Ciao
Davide
--
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GNU/Linux User: 302090: http://counter.li.org
Non autorizzo la memorizzazione del mio indirizzo su outlook

Re: We need to define a path for Debian to climate neutrality

[Julian Andres Klode]

On Fri, Apr 08, 2022 at 02:52:18PM -0400, Louis-Philippe Véronneau wrote:
> On 2022-04-08 14 h 35, Julian Andres Klode wrote:> I think individual
> travel to DebConf and similar events is somewhat> out of our control, as
> is the personal behavior of individual> submitters.
> I'm not an expert on estimating CO2 output, but I'm pretty sure DebConf
> is our largest contribution to CO2 emissions, mainly because of air travel.
> 
> The question I've been asking myself these past few years is: "Are
> in-person DebConfs worth it?" I think the answer is very clearly yes.

Yes, I got 0 benefit from the 2020 debconf, did not attend 2021, but
every in-person debconf yielded interesting apt discussions with
eventual useful outcomes.

Rotating DebConf between continents is a bit problematic from a CO2
perspective, but then it also enables some people from those continents
to join in the first place, and I think that's valuable to have.
-- 
debian developer - deb.li/jak | jak-linux.org - free software dev
ubuntu core developer  i speak de, en

Re: We need to define a path for Debian to climate neutrality

[Louis-Philippe Véronneau]

On 2022-04-08 14 h 35, Julian Andres Klode wrote:> I think individual
travel to DebConf and similar events is somewhat> out of our control, as
is the personal behavior of individual> submitters.
I'm not an expert on estimating CO2 output, but I'm pretty sure DebConf
is our largest contribution to CO2 emissions, mainly because of air travel.

The question I've been asking myself these past few years is: "Are
in-person DebConfs worth it?" I think the answer is very clearly yes.

I don't think Debian would be as successful if it were not for DebConf.
It's a very special time of the year and it bolsters collaboration and
helps us fix hard problems.

Even though Debian is not perfect, I believe our project offers a
glimpse of a different future, a viable alternative where individuals
and collectives have control over the technology they use. This to me is
part of the solution to climate change.

To quote Serge Latouche -- a very influential proponent of degrowth -- I
feel Debian is necessary to helps us « décoloniser l'imaginaire »
(decolonize the way we imagine things).

As such, I'm ready to defend the fact we should still continue to hold
DebConfs in person around the world each year.

Cheers,

-- 
  ⢀⣴⠾⠻⢶⣦⠀
  ⣾⠁⢠⠒⠀⣿⡁  Louis-Philippe Véronneau
  ⢿⡄⠘⠷⠚⠋   po...@debian.org / veronneau.org
  ⠈⠳⣄