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Originally Posted by Mambo
And for God's sake, will we ever start to care about the environment? How much paper we produce, how many books are printed all over the world? Is it only our comfort that matters?
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Growing pine and farming it for wood pulp that then gets put into books actually sequesters carbon, reducing this greenhouse gas.
Sorry, just couldn't help myself there. Yes, I care greatly about the environment. So much so that when the new Harry Potter book comes out, I will, as I have done for the past several volumes, pay a premium and impose a delay in delivery by ordering it from Amazon Canada (I live in the US) so I can get the version printed on recycled paper. (Would I rather have the ebook? You betcha, but we all know about the problem with that.)
Traditional paper production
can involve clearcutting of old-growth forests, use of dioxin-laden chemicals, and huge energy consumption. Or not. But to make this a fair comparison, I think we need to also consider the environmental impact of producing computers (Apple just got hit with another environmental complaint), and even more, disposing of them responsibly. The batteries often contain hazardous metals, the screens often contain mercury, etc. And
every time an ebook is read, energy is used. A printed book generally has an energy cost up front to produce, and again to transport to the consumer (with many stops along the way), but at that point, most of the energy cost is over.
Perhaps a thorough analysis would show that the energy involved in producing and transporting a paper book is, in fact, far greater than the energy involved in transmitting and reading an ebook several times, especially on an efficient reader. (Many books are only read once, after all.) We might even find that the overall environmental impact for an average individual would be far lower with a series of rugged low-power reading devices and ebooks than it would be with the equivalent number of paper books, which is the more correct comparison. I honestly don't know. I'd like to see such a study. But until then, I think we should be cautious in trying to claim an environmental advantage for ebooks, particularly as they are used today.