Thread: Do computers pollute?

Answer to your subject title is yes. In fact the US ships a lot of its computer waste to other countries such as India...

Originally Posted by moonus111

All manufactured products pollute! So yes computers do too.

Anything that is manufactured uses energy, that energy more than likely comes from a non-renewable, fossile fuel, energy resource.

First raw materials must be mined, ore extracted (pun). Then those materials are made into components, or sub-products, or other base materials. These materials are transported (obviously using fossil fuels) between various factories that produce more complex items.

By the time all the items that are part of the finished product are brought together massive portions of energy have been utilized to make the end product. The only way to make computers, and all other products green is to replace the entire energy economy with something else...

Space power satellites can do this, there are obstacles, but it has the potential to save the world and it is doable.

Logan Knox

-The world is not dead yet, So I'm trying to save it.

You're trying to save the World with a technology solution. But our human dilemma is not technological, but biological and geophysical. The Earth was created as a huge mass of hot gases 4.5 billion years ago and it has been slowly cooling and shrinking ever since; and it is still slowly cooling and shrinking today. But our human prosperity is based on a growing economy and we want it to keep on growing forever. That is our dilemma: A growing economy on a shrinking planet has no future, unless it can grow into outer space, so astronomers are looking desperately for new planets to colonize and develop; but even if they found one, there would be no way for living beings to travel thousands of light years away from planet Earth. Meanwhile, ecocidal pollution goes on and on with business as usual.

Originally Posted by moonus111

One of the things that I like to think about is the Gaia Theory. It's very deep.... Basically humanity may be mother earth's " organ" we are capable of taking life to places it hasn't been before. I could type a long book here... If man goes to the stars:

1.) Planets will not be the way we live, hollywood has this wrong, we'll be living on extremely large stations

2.) We have to take life (plants, animals, birds, bees, algae, etc.) in order to breath/eat.

but that's all postulation... right now we're damaging mother earth and we need a better solution than continuing to use fossil fuels...

Your suggestion that "humanity may be Mother Earth's "organ" is an instinctive macho concept that presumes it must dominate everything around it, including this entire planet and all the Cosmos outward forever. As such it is irrational and very destructive. Instead, we men should accept the contribution of women to soothe and calm our male passion for conquest and live at peace with each other and in balance with the planet that supports us.

There is a very great example of this idea in Beethoven's 4th piano concerto, 2nd movement, in which the string instruments represent the dominant male principle and it drives forward forcefully, while the piano represents the female principle that softly remonstrates for a more gentle attitude. The dialogue continues until the female theme gathers strength and by the weight of its moral power overwhelms the male theme, which retires to an assenting admission that she is right. It is as though Beethoven had overheard an argument between his mother and father and set it to music. I listened and it has become part of my inner self as I look for sheros as well as heros in the struggle to save our planet and ourselves.

Originally Posted by moonus111

careful on the flame, it's getting heavy.

I was trying to talk about the very subject you are. I put it in the wrong words due to my desire to reduce the length of the post. A good read through the Gaia theory will quell any question that it is a macho concept.

Gaia hypothesis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mother earth is weighed down by us, in the same way a ... ahh just read up a bit and maybe we can grasp what each other is saying.

I never though of Beethoven's like that...

I'm familiar with the Gaia concept and I agree completely. You and I agree on almost everything except the role of technology and space travel. I see it as macho Man's attempt to escape from the death symbols that haunt his dreams. But we must not allow ourselves to be led by any marketable technological advance, yet that's what is happening and it's part of the reason we are so close to ecocide and extinction.

Originally Posted by naturehappens

Every once in awhile when I walk into my bedroom, I can faintly smell cigarette smoke.... and I don't smoke. So, the answer is yes, it has to be the computer doing it.

Nah. But there has to be a reason why so many millions of people lack any rational imagination. I think the game shows and sit coms and all the tv ads are dumbing them down to be good little consumers, so they won't have to think.