Definition of Global Warming - Case Study Example

Introduction: Information Technology has done vast wonders for us in the present world. Information technology was initially used and developed mainly for the military purpose but it has grown tremendously to serve human kind in almost every aspect of life. It has enabled every comfort at our door step with presenting the user an access to online funds transfers, ticket booking, access to the latest movies and even shopping. Customers can hardly be found toiling in a long queue at the bank premises these days and same is the case at railway station or bus station ticket counters. Live information on the remotest of area and solution to your any problem, be it basic or complex, can be achieved with the help of information technology. Apart from these all, information technology has served human kind in a manner nobody expected it to initially. Information technology has helped reducing the global warming throughout our planet. Global warming is one of the gravest dangers posed to the environment in today’s era, due to the emission of green house gases. Recent discoveries including the scientific advances in Information Technology have drastically reduced the carbon emission of the globe by decreasing the energy need created by internet processing of multiple tasks including the bank transactions, online ticket booking, shopping etc. Moreover, the non-renewable sources of energy utilized to generate the power for these IT transactions could be further reduced with the help of ‘Green Technology’. “Two thousand scientists, in a hundred countries, engaged in the most elaborate, well organized scientific collaboration in the history of humankind, have produced long-since a consensus that we will face a string of terrible catastrophes unless we act to prepare ourselves and deal with the underlying causes of global warming.” -AL GORE, speech at National Sierra Club Convention, Sept. 9, 2005 Global Warming – Global warming is the dramatic and unexpected surge in temperature of the climate, which is a common abode for many different species and not just human beings, caused as a result of series of negative human activities like burning of fossil fuels( coal, oil and gas) and large scale deforestation. Burning of fossil fuels releases a large amount of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). These gases act as a thick blanket and absorb thermal radiations emitted by the earth’s surface, thereby resulting in the planet to warm up significantly. According to the reports of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, global greenhouse gas emissions have grown with an increase in 70% between 1970 and 2004. The increase in temperature is a kind of anomaly in ecosystem and this anomaly will cause severe storms and droughts, glaciers to melt, rising seas, changes in weather pattern and spread of diseases. There will be an increase in the sea level and the low lying islands will be left completely devastated. The inhabitants of the cities as well as other vegetation will see a dramatic increase in pests and other insects that will thrive due to an increased temperature, thus leading significantly to unexpected calamities. Loads of animal and plant species will be extinct and the habitat such as coral reefs and alpine meadows will be disheveled. Heat waves, due to global warming, have already caused a loss of 30,000 lives in Europe and 1500 deaths in India, in the year 2003. In this difficult time of global warming, IT has played a decisive role in saving energy. IT has efficiently changed all the conventional modes of getting a task done to a more simplistic manner and provides not only relatively cheaper solution at a faster pace but also saves a tremendous amount of energy. Imagine the amount of energy spent if everyone uses conventional sources of energy by literally going at a bank to do every enquiry or pay his/her bills or do a railway booking and to do shopping and not using the internet every single time. Moreover the amount of papers wasted, by not saving the data on computer but on papers, would have been in billions every single year. Today each and every document of smallest of companies, the financial statements from bank and even the utility bills are sent to consumers online in most cases, thereby saving a huge amount of paper. Initially, when the Information technology started gaining pace, there was a huge uproar amongst the people that they will start losing their jobs as computers will start replacing human beings. But it rather turned otherwise when information technology generated more jobs for the people. Apart from this there are some contentions that even IT industries are responsible for the emission of green house gases. This can be attributed to the huge data centers and gigantic servers which are used to store the information in such industries. Even, the software companies functioning across the globe are consuming a huge quantum of energy. If we take the data of only a developing country like India, around 8 million people are employed in IT sector. It has been observed that 60% of the people in any IT industry do not switch off their computer system while retuning back to home. A typical computer consumes about 40 W of energy every single hour, in a sleep mode. Approx. Energy wasted in a month in IT companies in 16 hours that a system is not functional:- 40W * 16*8000000*60/100*30 9216 Mega Watts of energy WASTED every single month by not switching the systems off when they return back to home. That means in just a single developing country, approx. 9216 Mega Watts of energy has been wasted by IT companies, considering only the usage of only PC and not even lightings, in a single month. Imagine for the whole world, what a humungous amount will it be? It can be inferred from the data above that its hard to Go Green without IT but there definitely can be some measures which must be taken by the IT industries which will help them in achieving not only a better operating profit by reducing the cost but also contribute to the environment in a real manner. Most of the software companies have recently started taking steps to reduce their power consumption. Like for instance HSBC, amidst its Global Technology Centers organizes a competition in which every employee at the centre that consumes minimum energy is rewarded with a gift. The competition takes in the data every month. Such initiatives foster an environment of reduced energy consumption amongst colleagues not only at the workplace but also at their home. Some other companies have also started initiatives in which the manager gets a report of the employee who miss to switch his/her workstation at the end of the day and a reason may be sought for any such behavior of the employee. There are a few other IT companies who have changed their infrastructure to include a separate air conditioning system over a group of workstations rather than a centralized system. By following this, the group of people when leave the office can inform the administration authority to get the air conditioner switched off, thereby saving a considerable amount of energy. So by reward or punishment, various companies in IT sector have at least started the initiative of saving the energy. But some other measures that still can be taken include switching on to renewable sources of energy like Wind energy or solar energy. This measure can be a paradigm shift for IT industries. Switching on to renewal sources of energy may be a paradigm shift for IT industries. A report1 says that the cost of Wind Energy cost around 4 cents per kilo watt hour for commercial purpose. The analysis presented in the report is as follows:- Initial costs: The initial cost is the cost obtained after including all expenses to evaluate, buy, install and start-up a wind system. Commercial 600 kW system = $800,000 Operation and maintenance costs: Assuming the operating cost per annum to be 2% of the initial capital employed. For the commercial wind system, the annual operating costs are: Commercial 2% x $800,000 = $16,000 Total annual costs over expected lifetime: To compute annual cost of the wind turbines. Annual Cost = (Initial Cost/Expected Life) + Annual Operating Costs Wind turbine manufacturers estimate a useful life of between 20 and 30 years for their product. Using 30 years as expected lifetime: Commercial ($800,000/30) + $16,000 = $42,667 per year B. Cost per Kilowatt Hour The cost per kilowatt-hour will be: Cost Per kWh = Annual Cost/Annual Energy Output Annual energy output: Based on the average wind speed, a conservative estimate of the wind turbine capacity factor will be 0.20 for the commercial system, although it may vary minutely based on difference in the location of the plant. Therefore, the annual energy outputs of the two systems would be: Commercial 600kw x 0.20 x 24 x 365 = 1,051,200 kilowatt-hrs And, therefore, the cost per kilowatt-hr will be:- Commercial $42,667/1,051,200 kwh = $0.04 per kilowatt-hr. Conclusion: The study on IT industry reflects clearly that IT has done wonders for the mankind not only in the terms of role it was expected to play that is providing comforts to the human race but also it has contributed efficiently in the reduction of global warming. We acknowledge that there is definitely a scope of reducing the consumption of energy but it is also true that IT is the backbone of our energy conservation drive. If IT industries themselves are successful in their endeavor to cut down their energy bills, which is not a distant possibility considering the initiatives they have started taking, soon the energy consumption meter for the world will come down and indeed the invention of IT will prove to be a boon to not only human beings but all forms of life existent in this planet!!! Works Cited: IPCC, 2007: Summary for Policymakers. In: Climate Change 2007: Mitigation. Contribution of Working Group III to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [B. Metz, O.R. Davidson, P.R. Bosch, R. Dave, L.A. Meyer (eds)], Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA. 20 July 2009. . “The Economics of Wind Power.” 4 April 2005. Michigan Technological University. 20 July 2009. . 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