{"id":505,"date":"2007-02-07T18:34:00","date_gmt":"2007-02-07T18:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/davetraynor.com\/wp2\/2007\/02\/07\/will-global-warming-speed-rise-of\/"},"modified":"2016-10-29T05:50:17","modified_gmt":"2016-10-29T05:50:17","slug":"will-global-warming-speed-rise-of","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davetraynor.com\/wp2\/2007\/02\/07\/will-global-warming-speed-rise-of\/","title":{"rendered":"Will global warming speed the rise of digital papers?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a onblur=\"try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}\" href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/_plNK-YE-FJo\/Rco3TT3zHZI\/AAAAAAAAADk\/33QxSd3jaG8\/s1600-h\/globe.jpg\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/davetraynor.com\/wp2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/02\/globe.jpg?w=629\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\"id=\"BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5028892738803932562\" \/><\/a><br \/>Since global warming has taken over as the top concern for Canadians, it got me wondering what some of spin-off effects of this attention might be. Some of those I&#8217;ve heard recently:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>We might end up paying more for gas for our cars.<\/li>\n<li>Industries that have struggled to go mainstream, like solar energy and wind power, may get a renewed lease on life.<\/li>\n<li>Air travel could slide, as people reduce their travel to save the planet. (Really?)<\/li>\n<li>Electric cars might not be dead after all.<\/li>\n<li>The earth&#8217;s temperature is going to rise, along with sea levels.<\/li>\n<li>Weird weather might become the norm.<\/li>\n<li>And a whole host of other things&#8230;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>But one thing I haven&#8217;t seen discussed much is what will happen to newspapers.<\/p>\n<p>Think about it. Every day, about 40,000 trees are cut down in Canada to provide the newsprint for Canada&#8217;s daily newspapers (according to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.recycling101.ca\/facts.html\">this website.<\/a>) That&#8217;s a lot of natural resources for something that has a shelf life of about a day.<\/p>\n<p>Add in the transportation costs to deliver, the productions costs to print, etc. and you can see that printing newspapers is not a climate-friendly operation.<\/p>\n<p>Now factor in the fact that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.economist.com\/opinion\/displaystory.cfm?story_id=7830218\">newspapers are already fretting about<\/a> what the growth of the wired world means for their continued existence and I don&#8217;t think it&#8217;s much of stretch to believe that the time has come for e-readers to take on a renewed life.<\/p>\n<p>By e-readers, I don&#8217;t mean reading the news on your computer. An e-reader, like <a href=\"http:\/\/products.sel.sony.com\/pa\/prs\/index.html\">this one<\/a> from Sony, are small devices, similar to handheld computers, but instead of a bulky LCD screen, they&#8217;ve got a thin display that shows the printed page. They really do look like a book, if that&#8217;s what they&#8217;re displaying, or a newspaper page. And unlike your PDA, the batteries last a long time.<\/p>\n<p>Although <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Ebooks\">e-books<\/a> have been around for a long time, they&#8217;ve never really caught on. Same thing with <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Online_newspaper\">electronic versions<\/a> of newspapers. You can read an on-line version of the printed paper, but so far the experience hasn&#8217;t been that great for most people.<\/p>\n<p>But a renewed concern over climate change might be just the push necessary for this new technology to really take off.  Could this be the &#8220;next big thing?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;re interested, <a href=\"http:\/\/spectrum.ieee.org\/feb07\/4884\">here&#8217;s an interesting article<\/a> from the IEEE&#8217;s Spectrum on-line edition, (the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ieee.org\/portal\/site\">IEEE<\/a> is one of the world&#8217;s largest professional technology associations). The article examines the current state of digital delivery of newspapers and predicts that mainstream acceptance may be closer than we think.<\/p>\n<p>Currently, several major news organizations in Europe and Asia are participating in test projects and several plan to move into a full subscriber implementation. Perhaps what&#8217;s happening is not unlike what&#8217;s happened with wireless phones, where Europe and Asia are well ahead of North America in terms of usage, especially in new applications, like <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Sms\">SMS<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>What makes it all possible is a revolutionary new product from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.eink.com\/technology\/flexible.html\">E Ink Corporation,<\/a> a spin-off from the famous <a href=\"http:\/\/www.media.mit.edu\/about\/index.html\">MIT Media Lab<\/a>. It&#8217;s a flexible display technology that has been talked about and thrown around for years and now looks like it&#8217;s going to take off in all kinds of ways.<\/p>\n<p>I know there&#8217;s something warm and fuzzy (and practical) about the current version of the daily paper. But I&#8217;m willing to consider that a lightweight, up-to-date version  that I can carry with me all the time might be a good alternative.<\/p>\n<p>What about you? Are you willing to give up paper in the morning?<\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: right;\">Technorati Tag: <a href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tag\/Digital\" rel=\"tag\">Digital<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tag\/Newspapers\" rel=\"tag\">Newspapers<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Since global warming has taken over as the top concern for Canadians, it got me wondering what some of spin-off effects of this attention might be. Some of those I&#8217;ve heard recently: We might end up paying more for gas for our cars. Industries that have struggled to go mainstream, like solar energy and wind [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1421,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/davetraynor.com\/wp2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/02\/globe.jpg?fit=110%2C110&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p88Hib-89","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davetraynor.com\/wp2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davetraynor.com\/wp2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davetraynor.com\/wp2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davetraynor.com\/wp2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davetraynor.com\/wp2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=505"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/davetraynor.com\/wp2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1422,"href":"https:\/\/davetraynor.com\/wp2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505\/revisions\/1422"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davetraynor.com\/wp2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davetraynor.com\/wp2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davetraynor.com\/wp2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davetraynor.com\/wp2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}