‘Books vs. eEbooks: Which are greener?’
John Platt at RiverWired weighs in, and veteran e-publisher Elizabeth Burton challenges him on various points.
The TeleRead take: E probably beats P at least in cases where you’re a heavy reader and don’t constantly swap out your gizmos. Keep in mind that many people are reading E off multi-purposes devices that they’d be using anyway. What’s more, e-book-capable devices can also be used for newspaper reading. In the end just about all of us are heavy readers of something.
So what’s your current thinking on the above topic?
Question: Isn’t an e-book a "book"?
Related: Earlier TeleRead items on this and similar topics.
August 31st, 2008 at 10:12 am
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August 31st, 2008 at 11:03 am
I agree that analyses that charge the environmental costs of computers against the eBooks are horribly unfair. People have computers for various reasons and eBook reading is an incremental use. Charging the cost of generating electricity is fair, but again, it should be incremental. Many people don’t turn off their PCs even when they’re not actively working on them so the electrical cost of eBook reading may be minimal. Of course, downloading rather than making a drive to my nearest Barnes and Noble (approximately 20 miles) is a pretty huge deal.
I think nobody ever evaluates the environmental costs of providing climate-controlled storage for books–both before and after sales. I don’t think I’ve seen a paper book evaluation that includes the environmental cost of building huge Barnes and Nobles, of running their air conditioning, or of stripping land to make vast parking lots.
Book publishers are becoming increasingly aware of the environmental consequences of offshore printing–which has contributed to the deforestation of several third world countries. It isn’t correct, however, to assume that all paper comes from well-managed local forests equipped with environmentally-conscious paper-making facilities.
Further, with advances in technology (like ePaper), the greenhouse costs of eBooks will continue to decline. Not so with paper.
Rob Preece
Publisher, http://www.BooksForABuck.com
August 31st, 2008 at 11:38 am
I seem to recall hearing that for every tree lumberjacks cut down, they are required by law to plant two. This would mean that paper may have a greenhouse cost in the short run, but in the long run it actually helps.
August 31st, 2008 at 9:49 pm
Again, this may be true in the US. I doubt it’s true in Indonesia. Even if it is true, two saplings are hardly the same as one substantial tree in terms of carbon impact.
Again, you’ve got to consider more than the trees. Shipping trees to pulp mills, pulping, the chemical process of bleaching and papermaking, shipping paper to printing plants, all of the chemical messes in inks, shipping books to warehouses, shipping from warehouses to distribution centers and bookstores. Storing books in beautiful air conditioned bookstores, stripping covers and returning covers, trade paperback and hardback books, driving to bookstores to buy books, storing books at home. Books in landfills (rotting and adding carbon to the atmosphere), it all adds up.
Save a tree is shorthand, but far from the full story.
Rob Preece
Publisher, http://www.BooksForABuck.com