Ecological impacts

We have blogged before about the ecological impact of the magazine industry. We would like to muster some arguments that could show the extent to which digital magazines really are a sound ecological development as they appear to be.

Before we get too committed to this approach, here is a thought from left-field: perhaps we should really be persuading magazine publishers to print magazines white on black, rather than mostly black on white? In this way the magazine industry would adjust readers to a mode of presentation and design which will have significant energy savings when the switch to primarily digital magazines is complete. Mark Onktush calculates that if Google were to switch from a black on white display, to a white on black display, there would be a saving of about 750 Megawatt hours a year.

Hmm... this is a topic to which one is tempted to return in early April. Right at the beginning of the month.