The Carbon Footprint of Digital Books

Could I have a more pretentious title for a post?

"Ask Umbra", which seems to be a MSN column on all things green, did a piece on paper vs. digital books. Which is greener?

The answer seems to be that if you keep your Kindle for any reasonable length of time and actually use it, you will be doing the Earth some good.

I don't care. I like books.

What prompted me to write about it was this:

"A MS candidate named Greg Kozak pitted textbooks against e-book devices [PDF] in 2003. He found that paper production, electricity of printing operations, and personal transportation were the main factors affecting the book footprint, while electricity was the main issue for e-readers; and that books were responsible for four times the greenhouse emissions as e-readers."

Generally, my courses at BU are offering electronic versions of textbooks. I am not sure if the practice is as high a priority for the on-campus students, or we online students are the primary beneficiaries. But I am not going for them. I like having the book in my hands. I like that I don't always have to be on the computer to do my homework.

I generally read newpapers online (although I do get the Sunday Tribune. Coupons and bird cage liner. Sorry.) and I pay my bills online and I use e-mail far, far more than I write letters.

But I am not giving up books any time soon. You can read the the entire article here.