Content-type: text/html Downes.ca ~ Stephen's Web ~ Scaling education: What is the carbon impact?

Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community

This is part one of something (not sure what) and raises the important question of reducing existing emissions as a part of any strategy to scale education globally. My main concern is that this presentation, coming as it does from a UK context, makes a lot of assumptions that don't hold elsewhere. For example, electricity use where I live has a much lower impact, because most (97%) of it is generated from non-carbon sources. Similarly, when though I use a PHEV, the energy cost of working from home is a fraction of what it costs to commute. There's a section on 'new buildings' and while I agree that there is a significant environmental cost there, it seems to make much more sense to cyber-commute and repurpose existing facilities. But most of all, I think: these impacts are a fraction of what is produced by much more questionable environmental sources in society: private jets and yachts, pointless invasions and wars, the lack of alternative power generation, continued use of pulp and paper, and more.

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
stephen@downes.ca

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Last Updated: Dec 22, 2024 06:22 a.m.

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