The Internet: the "green" way of living

It turns out that the Internet is doing a lot more than just helping get the word out about environmental problems and solutions. It is, itself, an environmental solution.

A new report from the American Consumer Institute has calculated the current and future effects that broadband Internet will have on our carbon emissions. The resulting numbers are staggering. In the next 10 years, ACI reports that the world will save roughly 1 BILLION tons of carbon in the next ten years by operating on the Internet.

The trends break down like this:

E-Commerce will reduce emissions by 200 M tons
Telecommuting will prevent 250 tons of carbon emissions from reduced driving, 30 tons from reduced office construction and 300 tons of energy savings
Teleconferencing could prevent 200 M tons of carbon emissions (if it replaces 10% of face-to-face meetings.)
Shifting newspaper from print to digital could save 60 M tons of carbon
Digitally shipping other goods, such as music, movies and books would also contribute.
Rock on, Internet! Well done...read the full report here (pdf).