Letter to Ballmer, Bezos, Cook: Go to Iceland (SmartPlanet)
 |
| A billboard at Iceland's Keflavik airport advertising the country's geothermal energy, from utility Landsvirkjun. Photo by Mark Halper. |
From Mark Halper, Freelance journalist, SmartPlanet contributing editor, Bristol, England.
Dear Steve Ballmer, Jeff Bezos and Tim Cook,
As CEOs of Microsoft, Amazon and Apple, you’re probably aware that the environmental group Greenpeace this week branded each of your companies as laggards at improving the environmental friendliness of your data centers. It has launched a public campaign to pressure you into improvements.
But allow me to make a suggestion: Take your data to Iceland. Yes, Iceland. As I’ve written before here on SmartPlanet and in other publications including Time magazine, the North Atlantic island is a perfect place to “go green.”
Iceland runs entirely on renewable electricity - 75 percent from hydro, and the rest from geothermal. There’s not a coal plant in sight. The same geological forces that set off the country’s volcanoes also help generate electricity. As the billboard for Icleandic power company Landsvirkjun notes, “Who needs coal, when you have fire?”
Dear Steve Ballmer, Jeff Bezos and Tim Cook,
As CEOs of Microsoft, Amazon and Apple, you’re probably aware that the environmental group Greenpeace this week branded each of your companies as laggards at improving the environmental friendliness of your data centers. It has launched a public campaign to pressure you into improvements.
But allow me to make a suggestion: Take your data to Iceland. Yes, Iceland. As I’ve written before here on SmartPlanet and in other publications including Time magazine, the North Atlantic island is a perfect place to “go green.”
Iceland runs entirely on renewable electricity - 75 percent from hydro, and the rest from geothermal. There’s not a coal plant in sight. The same geological forces that set off the country’s volcanoes also help generate electricity. As the billboard for Icleandic power company Landsvirkjun notes, “Who needs coal, when you have fire?”
