Google Cloud Will Now Show Its Users Their Carbon Footprint In the Cloud (techcrunch.com) 41
Google Cloud today announced a new (and free) feature that will provide its users with custom carbon footprint reports that detail the carbon emissions their cloud usage generates. TechCrunch reports: "Customers can leverage this data for reporting as well as internal audits and carbon reduction efforts. Build in collaboration with customers like HSBC, L'Oreal and Atos, our carbon footprint reporting introduces a new level of transparency to support customers in meeting their climate goals," said Jenn Bennett, who leads Google Cloud's data and technology strategy for sustainability in the Office of the CTO. "Customers can monitor their cloud emissions over time by project, by product and by region, empowering IT teams and developers with metrics that help them reduce their carbon footprint. Digital infrastructure emissions are really just one part of their environmental footprint, but accounting for carbon emissions is necessary to measure progress against the carbon reduction targets that they all have."
As Bennett noted, once a company has accurate reporting in place, providing recommendations for how to reduce their climate impact is a natural next step. Specifically, this means adding carbon estimates to Google Cloud's Unattended Project Recommender, which helps customers reduce their number of idling resources, and adding a sustainability impact category to its Active Assist Recommender.
As Bennett noted, once a company has accurate reporting in place, providing recommendations for how to reduce their climate impact is a natural next step. Specifically, this means adding carbon estimates to Google Cloud's Unattended Project Recommender, which helps customers reduce their number of idling resources, and adding a sustainability impact category to its Active Assist Recommender.
So...they gamified it (Score:2)
...and I'm getting the high score.
pshaw (Score:2)
The carbon footprint of a computer for a day is less than a steak meal for two. This is virtue signalling, nothing more.
Re: (Score:2)
You can export your carbon foot-print data to BigQuery and run data mining against it --- a fool and his money are soon parted.
https://cloud.google.com/carbo... [google.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
The whole concept of carbon footprint itself is a bunch of greenwashing.
First, it was created by BP to deflect attention away from the fossil fuel industry and onto "individual responsibility". More like "we'd love to go green, but you people refuse to give up your cars, so we're forced to keep pumping up dinosaurs to feed your habit, you evil evil consumer!".
Because of course, the individ
Re: (Score:2)
Some companies want this data because the contracts they are involved in consider their carbon footprint.
There is consumer and government pressure to emit less CO2, so companies started to consider emissions when accepting bids for contracts.
Does it include google data mining (Score:2, Insightful)
Oh the irony (Score:3)
Does the user's carbon footprint include using "the cloud" to check their carbon footprint? You know, the user's computer (sorry, I mean Google terminal), routers and servers required to deliver that information: that burns energy, and thus has a carbon footprint also.
Using "the cloud" to do almost anything has an insane energy cost [chipkin.com]. This is yet another thing people could work out locally without the need for any cloudiness. But then of course Google wouldn't have yet another way to collect people's usage patterns and private data...
Re: (Score:2)
No, it is just the carbon footprint of their cloud hosting service for websites.
Free!(*)
* payment details required
Re: (Score:1)
Sorry, but Right Wing isn't about forcing you to use any good or service.
That's the wet dream of the other guys.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Sorry, but Right Wing isn't about forcing you to use any good or service.
That's the wet dream of the other guys.
The right wing in the US is very much about forcing their values on others... and if the constitution is in the way, they have now identified what they think is a loophole by letting their voters enforce it rather than the government. Stasi-like. And trying to prevent people from voting [youtu.be] is how they want to stay in power.
The right-wing in the US has gone in a very anti-liberty, pro-religion, anti-science, anti-facts and anti-democratic direction the last decades - especially after the second Bush administra
Re: (Score:2)
The right wing in the US is very much about forcing their values on others... and if the constitution is in the way,
Yes. We see all about the Right forcing people to abandon their right to make personal medical decisions for themselves under threat of being fired and forcibly converted into second class citizens and co-opting business into their authoritarian schemes.
Oh wait!!!
The right-wing in the US has gone in a very anti-liberty, pro-religion, anti-science, anti-facts and anti-democratic direction the last decades
Anti liberty. Yes, they won't let you oppress your neighbors because you think you're right and they're wrong.
Being "pro religion" isn't a bad thing. For most of it, it's simply let people have their religion without infringing on the beliefs of others.
This is why the COVID Cult is so obnoxious.
And you misspelled "anti-scientism". You're "Follow the science! No no! Not THAT science! This is the aforementioned unacceptable religious dogma of the COVID Cult.
Anti-facts. Like all those "mostly peaceful protests" that had people destroying monuments and burning cities down?
Anti-democratic huh? Like a California congressperson inciting citizens to harass and threaten public officials who she doesn't agree with?
The US is a Republic. A nation of laws. Arrived at via democratic PROCESS.
But we are NOT a direct democracy.
The mobs that have been attacking cities over the last couple years. THOSE are the ultimate democracy. And this country cannot be allowed to abide by mob rule.
Sorry if denying people the right to spontaneously attack, injure and murder people you disagree with in the slightest offends you.
I'm not saying the Right has things perfect or anything.
They don't, and they still have their share of assholes.
But they currently are FAR from the biggest threat to this country at the moment.
Maybe when you're willing to actually discuss the failings of your own political allies, instead of shielding them from the consequences of their rampant idiocies, this might become a productive discussion.
But, right now, all you're doing is "Rah Rah"ing your "team".
I think you are illustrating my points here... When you have a very contagious pandemic, you will need restrictions to preserve public health - obviously. This is not just about your health, but about you spreading it to other. Now, if everyone took the vaccine the need for measures etc. would be much smaller. In more sane countries - e.g. the Scandinavian ones - vaccine rates are high, and we can go back to almost normal.
I also need to take the time to point out that there is "No! Not that science!" when
Re: (Score:2)
Again, the Flu kills people every year.
The treatment for the Flu doesn't provide perfect protection either.
There's lots of recidivism on regular dosing.
Why do we not lock down and force people to take a flu shot?
You, apparently, prefer the lie of "If we do this, THEN it will be "SAFE" to have a life again."
Me? I prefer to be free.
Even if that means I might get sick and die.
Even if that means others might get sick and die.
Living in a cage is not living.
And in the rush to "follow the scientism.", you're not
Re: Introducing RightwingNutjobCoin (Score:2)
s/seventy-fifth user/bank (Score:2)
Nice way to shame Python, node.js, & ORM users (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I agree with your view on the incredible proliferation of frameworks (especially JS), but I want to talk more about your database comments.
I feel like I keep seeing comments here and elsewhere about how people are interacting with relational databases today, and it seems crazy to me. I learned the object-relational model as a CS student, and of course I learned normalization, but I also learned how much normalization is appropriate and even when normalization might be a bad idea. I feel very comfortable wit
Re: (Score:2)
I also grew up when 32K was considered a lot, and yet somehow a couple of guys managed to write Elite. There comes a point though, surely, where the cost of optimising exceeds the cost of inefficiency. On the backend (which is where you're mostly focussed), I'd imagine this kicks in fairly quickly - typically the complexity is quite high, and testing is likely to be lengthy. Some of the examples you gave are pretty woeful, so I'd imagine not very expensive to fix and make a good saving, but (say) converting
Very simple ways + just know the basics (Score:2)
Some of the examples you gave are pretty woeful, so I'd imagine not very expensive to fix and make a good saving, but (say) converting from Python to Go isn't a small undertaking, so raises questions about how much carbon (or money) it would really save.
On the frontend though, if you can make your in-browser javascript run 10% quicker, then multiply that saving by however many users you have, and you're almost certainly saving a lot of money, carbon and time (even though you don't have to pay it all yourself). Here I'd say "frameworks" and sloppy coding are probably the worst for humanity as a whole.
On the backend, some simple ways:
1. For ORM Systems, write JPQL or SQL queries to update individual fields instead of loading the entire object into memory, updating a timestamp, and rebuilding the entire object tree in the DB (the JPA default).
2. Index your fucking tables
3. Take a step back from your data model and actually understand the problem you're solving and think about how it will be used. Boyce Codd normal form is a suggestion, not religious dogma. ORM is a tool, not a religion. Use it
Re: (Score:2)
Because I am a masochist, I bring up...well, if you're never going to use the pieces, why not just encode the entire object into a CLOB? Oracle can query it if you REALLY NEED to do some JSONPath queries or why not use Mongo or another non-relational DB that fits your business needs better...to which they smile and politely nod and never invite me to meetings again..
Just curious - are you randomly bringing this up (hijacking the meeting) or is that the point of the meeting? Also, do you typically try to sell your points the way you are presenting it here?
I've proposed cutting their electricity bill in half for an application because I've identified some really inefficient logic...their response? STFU, do your job and put out some more new features.
Have you tried tying in the new features you were asked to do to those optimizations? Are you optimizations easy to do or would they require a complete rewrite (which may impact everyone else adding features) ?
Just curious - I found your story interesting enough to have more questions :)
In fairness, I am a paid profes
Re: (Score:2)
Because I am a masochist, I bring up...well, if you're never going to use the pieces, why not just encode the entire object into a CLOB? Oracle can query it if you REALLY NEED to do some JSONPath queries or why not use Mongo or another non-relational DB that fits your business needs better...to which they smile and politely nod and never invite me to meetings again..
Just curious - are you randomly bringing this up (hijacking the meeting) or is that the point of the meeting? Also, do you typically try to sell your points the way you are presenting it here?
I've proposed cutting their electricity bill in half for an application because I've identified some really inefficient logic...their response? STFU, do your job and put out some more new features.
Have you tried tying in the new features you were asked to do to those optimizations? Are you optimizations easy to do or would they require a complete rewrite (which may impact everyone else adding features) ?
Just curious - I found your story interesting enough to have more questions :)
In fairness, I am a paid professional. It's reasonable to say "do what I want you to do, not what you think is best for my Cost of Goods and Services (COGS)." However, I've whined all my career about TANGIBLY bad code. If it's not slow enough to lose business, they'd rather just deploy 10x more servers than they need than fix shitty business logic.
I personally bring up optimizations when they're designing the features. TMK, that's the best and most appropriate time. I am sure my sales tactics have room for improvement, but I don't think they're any worse than any other engineer. In general, people are worse with optimizing working applications than people with healthy teeth are with flossing. They know they SHOULD do it, but they're not fucking doing it until it's far too late.
I like writing optimized, simple, and performant code. It is my c
Yay! Guilt stats! (Score:2)
You are THIS MUCH GUILTY OF KILLING THE WORLD!
I don't get people who get off on this sort of masochistic mental masturbation.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
That's great for people trying to do least-cost and maximum density.
For those who require maximum performance, however, being one of hundreds of virtual machines crammed onto a single physical node and allotted just barely enough resources...
A lot of bull (Score:2)
No way could Google ever know my carbon footprint. This seems to me as a way to reward vanity. Hey guys my carbon footprint is so low it is probably lower than yours. It is pure psych...propaganda... meant to make people think that they could do more.
Re: (Score:2)
My first though was that this was to encourage people to use the services more - to pump up the numbers shown. I know I would be doing that, but I can put stuff in my own computers, no need to to use someone else's.
Microsoft does this too (Score:2)
https://www.microsoft.com/en-u... [microsoft.com]
both of them? (Score:2)
What Dershowitz didn't anticipate. (Score:1)
"Carbon footprint" is oil industry spin (Score:1)
Seriously, the concept was invented by British Petroleum in a campaign designed to deflect attention away from the polluters. If you see the term, know you're being manipulated.
https://thred.com/change/how-t... [thred.com]
Re: (Score:2)
The other carbon footprint (Score:3)
And what about the carbon foot-print of Google's no doubt gargantuan spying apparatus, how much is that?
I thought Google wanted to use zero carbon (Score:2)
If google gets to 0 carbon energy for operations, then presumably the only remaining carbon footprint for cloud users is the network equipment and the embedded carbon in the manufacturing of the user's computer etc.
This needs to be balanced against (Score:2)