Bill St. Arnaud gave an energetic and interesting presentation at the Information Without Borders Conference on February 3rd, 2011 via Skype. Although the sound quality waivered in consistency, his message rang very clear that our planet is going to see major changes over the next 50 years due to climate change. He suggested that the main threat to climate change was the ever increasing amounts of carbon dioxide that has been entering the earth. Due to increased levels of CO₂ the planet’s atmosphere temperatures is rising and these changes may cause severe weather patterns, such as droughts and increased rainfall amounts. He discussed how the information profession is creating a huge carbon footprint due to the large energy demands of information technologies, such as phones and computers. He recommended that time and efforts would be better spent on generating green energy, low or no carbon emission electricity, instead of developing energy efficient products. I believe that energy efficient technologies do contribute to a reduction in energy consumption, but I agree that the production of green energy technology is an essential aspect of decreasing CO₂ submissions. However, green energy technology, such as wind turbines, is expensive and it is not always a realistic option for the average citizen. Often major energy consumption and production changes occur based on government initiatives, such as legislations and policies.

In Nova Scotia, the government supports the Environmental Goals and Sustainability Act, whose goals are to increase renewable energy production to 18.5% by 2013. While there is always more that can be done to mitigate climate change this is a starting point for reducing the province’s CO₂ emissions.

St. Arnaud mentioned the movement towards virtualization of materials, such as books, could help to decrease the creation of material wastes. Universities could move towards the use of e-readers instead of textbooks. This is an interesting idea. In Daniel Goleman’s blog, about the life cycle assessment of e-readers he and his research partner, Gregory Norris, recommend that a person with an e-reader needs to read 100 books to break even environmentally speaking. The movement towards virtual textbooks sounds like an environmentally sustainable future direction for schools.

Another major initiative mentioned in the presentation is to power data centres and cloud computing with zero carbon energy technologies. These data centres and clouds consume large quantities of energy and because they can be operated from anywhere it makes sense to situate them in countries where green electricity is produced, such as Norway. Since purchasing green energy is not always the most cost effective option for companies, governments might need to enact legislation to promote the development of data centres and cloud computing in areas that produce clean energy. In St. Arnaud’s blog about green information technology, he discusses more about cloud computing and green technologies.

Due to time restraints St. Arnaud was unable to answer questions to clear up the cloud of negative energy surrounding his presentation. With a controversial topic, such as climate change, it is important to generate discussion and provide avenues of hope and empowerment. If these opportunities are not provided in environmental presentations, there is a risk that feelings of indifference can be generated. By providing suggestions on realistic changes that we can make in our own lives we can help improve positive energy towards action on climate change issues.