Green Campus Computing

Assignment 4

Green Campus Computing

Environmental issues of today….

The climate is changing. The earth is warming up, and there is now overwhelming scientific consensus that it is happening, and human-induced. With global warming on the increase and species and their habitats on the decrease, chances for ecosystems to adapt naturally are diminishing. Many are agreed that climate change may be one of the greatest threats facing the planet. Recent years show increasing temperatures in various regions, and/or increasing extremities in weather patterns.

We all know that the world today is facing not only economic crisis but also with the environmental crisis. Everything that we do that has something to contribute to the environment affects us directly or indirectly. More likely, we are now starting to perceive the effect of what they called “Global Warming”.

Global Warming is defined as the increase of the average temperature on Earth. As the Earth is getting hotter, disasters like hurricanes, droughts and floods are getting more frequent.

According to Encarta Dictionary “Global Warming” is the increase in world’s temperatures that believed to be caused in part by the greenhouse effect. Greenhouse Effect is warming of the earth’s surface as a result of atmospheric pollution by gases coming from factories, burnings of plastics, etc. made by human activities. It is now feared that the warming effects are being undesirably increased, causing climate change and melting icecaps. Changes that would really inflict all creatures in the world.

To address this very important issue that everyone is involve one of the advocacies is green campus computing.

Green Campus Computing is a way that make our practices using computing devices environmental friendly and contribute to the welfare of our environment. Its concern is to the electrnic waste or e-waste to lesssen and save energy.

To broaden the idea, let us take the side from Encarta dictionary about green campus computing. It denotes to become environmental advocate, to become aware of environmental issues, and make somebody aware of environment issues. As well, supporting or promoting the protection of the environment and produced an environmentally and ecologically friendly way such as by using renewable resources. An advocacy that has something to do with the use of computers or activity of using computers software, electronic gadgets, and the like that is more likely involve to school activities and universities.

An eye-opener and movement to make everyone to…Go GREEN… to become actively interested in environmental issues and support environmental causes.

Since, it involves computers and technology; there are a lot of organizations and institution that support green campus computing. One of the medium in promoting it is through internet or specifically speaking sites, blogs, and forum. There are some of the sites that promote green campus computing is:

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/offices/es/8450.shtml
http://www.northwestern.edu/newscenter/stories/2009/03/greencampus.html
http://www20.csueastbay.edu/news/2009/04/powerdown-040709.html

This site campaign to save energy and the environment by practicing green computing. They have several suggested practices of saving energy, to mention with:

Enable Power Management on your Monitor
Setting the monitor to go into "sleep" mode after 10 minutes when not in use. For the 2,800 computers on campus this could save as much as 574,000 KWh annually. Through following this, our university could really save energy and contribute to prevent the increasing condition of environmental crisis.

Turn off your Screen Saver
Despite the name, screen savers don't save anything, especially not power. Screen savers with a moving display use as much or more energy as a monitor in use. Unless it is conveying a message to the user, shut it off, and enable the "sleep" mode or turn off the monitor.

Turn off your Computer at Night and on Weekends
Turning a computer off at night so it runs only 8 hours a day reduces energy use by 141 kWh per unit or 57% savings. The 2,800 computers on campus could save as much as 394,800 kWh annually.
If your machine is a server, check with LITS or your department to see if hours of operation can be reduced.
· Shutting down computers does not reduce its life. Myths often do not keep pace with technology, modern hard
disks are not significantly affected by frequent shutdowns.
· Turning computer off uses more energy than leaving it on is not true. The truth is the surge of power used by a CPU to boot is less than the energy used by the unit when left on for over 3 minutes.

Turn off Printers (and Copiers) at Night and on Weekends
A typical laser jet printer uses 1,221 kWh if left on all the time. This can be reduced to 378 kWh by turning off at night and on weekends, a 69% savings. For the 235 LITS supplied printers on campus, this equates to 198,000 kWh.

Don't Turn Equipment on in the Morning until you Need it
Break the habit of turning on office equipment as soon as you arrive each day. Wait until the first time you need it!
For the 235 LITS supplied printers on campus, if each printer operated for 2 hours less each day, the additional annual savings would be $17,100 kWh.

Turn off Scanners and other Peripherals Except when being Used
In many offices, scanners and other peripherals are only used occasionally. Keep them off until they are needed and turn off after use.

Buying Equipment
If you are buying printers or other peripherals for the office, buy Energy Star compliant equipment. If you are purchasing monitors, purchase flat screens. Flat screens use 40% less energy (30W instead of 70W).
By switching the campus standard LITS saves approximately 103,000 kWh annually.

Reduce Paper Use
Producing paper is both an energy and resource intensive operation. In copiers alone, the Colleges may makes hundreds or thousands copies a month. Not using the paper in the first place is always better than recycling it after use.

Tips for reducing paper use:
· Print double-sided when possible
· Use 'print preview' to review documents before printing
· Archive your email by saving to a folder instead of printing it out
· Use the 'track changes' feature in Word when collaborating with others on a document to avoid printing it out
· Limit mailings — circulate by email
· Think twice before printing something off the web — save a bookmark for future reference
· Use recycled content paper (at least 30%)
· Recycle all toner cartridges and computer components

In addition…

Energy audits of campus buildings
Facilities Management that is conducting energy audits of the major buildings on the campuses. The audits identify energy cost saving measures that are implemented to reduce energy costs and consumption.

Recycling Policy
A policy that promote recycling in office materials and wastes. Unplugging electronic devices, changing light bulbs and recycling are made to help departments "green" their offices.

*** By practicing these little things in our university we may do our part as an organization to our environment. It may be little thing to consider but big things start with it. Let’s make our campus green.

References:
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/offices/es/8450.shtml
http://www.northwestern.edu/newscenter/stories/2009/03/greencampus.html
http://www20.csueastbay.edu/news/2009/04/powerdown-040709.html
Microsoft® Encarta® 2008. © 1993-2007 Microsoft Corporation.