Two Condé Nasts in One!

Now is the time when we juxtapose, Small Dead Animals-style:

Data center emissions account for small percentage of global emissions, Greenpeace information technology analyst Gary Cook tells us. That’s not much compared to 14 percent that goes towards agriculture or the 13 percent that goes to transportation. But data center emissions are growing by at least 13 percent per year, Cook says. And within two years, information technology in general, including manufacturing servers and other gear, is expected to be to account for between seven and 12 percent of all electrical use, according the report.

Data centers are expected to account for about 21 percent of that usage, mostly because of the explosive demand for streaming video. Cook explains that even though streaming can offset some emissions, such as the manufacture and delivery of DVDs or BluRay disks, the convenience of streaming is leading us to consume more content. Instead of buying a few videos and watching them again and again, we’re now binge-watching entire seasons of shows in a sitting, which ends up creating a bigger carbon footprint overall.

—“Your binge-watching is making the planet warmer,” Wired magazine, owned by Condé Nast publications. (Link safe; goes to excerpt at Hot Air.)

Condé Nast Entertainment has begun streaming more than 600 episodes of digital video content on Roku, the “over the top” set-top box that streams programming to the Internet. “CNE now produces up to 40 new episodes a week on a growing portfolio of regular shows,” writes Steve Smith.

And in mid-March the glossy publisher’s Brides magazine will begin streaming its second version of “Brides Live Wedding,”  a weekly Web series “where readers can plan a couple’s wedding via social media by voting on everything from the dress to the flowers,”  writes Lucia Moses in Adweek. “Every aspect of the wedding will have a sponsor, from the registry (Target) to hair and beauty (Neutrogena) and wedding bands (Simon G.).”

—“Conde Nast Starts Streaming Digital Content On Roku,” MediaPost, December 9, 2013.

As the Insta-Professor likes to say, I’ll believe it’s a crisis when the people who tell me it’s a crisis start to act like it’s a crisis themselves. If Condé Nast don’t want to look like hypocrites, they need to not only immediately cease streaming their videos, but close down their Websites, which are also housed in data centers and server farms.

Flashback: From 2010, “Springtime for Algore:” Condé Nast’s Traveler‘s Romantic Pilgrimage to Germany’s ‘Eco–Anschluss.’