December 2nd, 2008
Welcome to MegaTom
Tom Raftery, analyst at Greenmonk and another Irregular pinged me this morning to let me know about a new community: MegaTom. Born out of an idea from Gavin Starks and Simon Wardley, MegaTom seeks to act as the hub around which people can discuss the many green issues facing our future. If you can get past the (current) day-glo orange background, the intent is solid.
Last week, Tom explained the idea behind MegaTom to me and now outlined by Gavin Starks:
The average European creates 10 tonnes of CO2 per annum.
The average American, 20 tonnes.
To avert the dangers of Climate Change, we need to drop our CO2 production to 1 tonne per person.
Problem: What is 1 tonne of CO2? How do you visualise it?
Answer: You don’t! You change the metric. 1 tonne = 1 person’s annual CO2 production.
1 average person. 1 Tom.Because it’s not about saving tonnes, it’s about saving everyone.
For example, a 15 minute shower is 0.1% of a Tom, driving 100 miles in a standard car is 4% of a Tom and producing 1 laptop computer is 45% of a Tom.
How many Toms have you consumed? Don’t waste your Toms.
Save Toms, not tonnes!
Think Tom Cruise, Tom Hanks or Tom Mix. It reminds me of James Governor’s notion of bit miles as a useful narrative applied to industry’s consumption of energy resources in computing. I like the concept of ‘Toms’ as a way of helping people understand an otherwise difficult topic. I look forward to seeing it applied to computing more generally.
Dennis Howlett has been providing comment and analysis on enterprise software since 1991. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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