[HCoop-Discuss] EnvironmentalPolicy

[ntk at hcoop.net]

>
>> We could have had an environmental policy from Day 1.  We've been
>> operating as a corporation for almost two years now and as an
>> unincorporated group for years longer, but we still have no policy
>> whatsoever.  It's not going to get easier once another 200 members join.
>
> Lack of policy is a kind of policy.  Our policy is *do nothing*.  These
> energy credits are meaningless as it doesn't benefit us in anyway other
> than the fact we can throw some fancy label on our website claiming we are
> "green" ... fake green for that matter.

As Dane said in his email, buying credits from a reputable group investing
solely in _new_ renewable projects is actually _better_ than buying
renewable power "directly" from a utility.

"Do nothing" may be a policy, but it's not a good policy.

> Excellent, thanks for making this donation, maybe next year you and the
> others can opt to do the same?  This plea of ~ less than 4-5 cents per
> member, per month, is fine and dandy except for the underlining fact that
> this is purely voluntary cost.
>
> If this is really a concern to people we'd be better off trying to find a
> hosting facility that actually *is* powered by 'clean' energy.

It's also a voluntary decision to buy dirty power from our colo.  We can't
afford to limit our options to colo facilities that are "green."  (Try
finding them, there's not a lot of good options.) We can afford to use
RECs to be green ourself, and again, as Dane pointed out, utility
companies often do a worse job than REC vendors like NativeEnergy.

> Can we please put this issue to rest and either put it in a poll or forget
> about it.

Forgive me for being peeved by those who are claiming that I am
"distracting" from getting set up at Peer1 by pushing it now.

I've been doing as much as anyone over the past days, weeks, and months to
get set up at Peer1.  I housed three boxes in my own bedroom for several
months.  We could have set up a month ago but we were waiting until Adam
was finished with more pressing business so he could concentrate on
setting up at Peer1, even though October would have been better for me. 
During this past month my apartment flooded out and I was briefly
homeless, and had to relocate the servers twice to rescue them from the
flood, at one point sharing my bed with the Sun Fire v20z.  For all of
which I asked and received no remuneration.  I've spent more than three
days in the datacenter downtown and and three times went to reboot Deleuze
in the small hours of the morning to bail out our sysadmins, including
leaving a party Thanksgiving night, just to keep things moving.  I've
compiled kernels and packages to get Linux 2.6 and the RAID management
software running even though I'm not an admin, because nobody else was
doing it.

So I'm not very moved by the idea that I'm putting us behind by demanding
that we spend a few minutes, independent of system administration, getting
SOME kind of environmental policy BEFORE we are migrated to Peer1, whether
or not it involves buying green power credits from NativeEnergy or some
other provider.  It will be far too easy to say "Why now?" later.

-ntk