Environmental issues often span long periods of time, far-flung areas and labyrinthine layers of complexity. This book investigates how the tools and techniques of information technology (IT) can help tackle environmental problems at such vast scales. The author describes theoretical, technological and social aspects of a growing interdisciplinary approach to sustainability and offers both a human-centered framework for understanding Green IT systems and specific examples and case studies of Green IT in action.
Bill Tomlinson is Associate Professor of Informatics at the University of California, Irvine, and a Researcher at the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology.
Greening through IT provides timely insights into the fusion underway between those within the environmental and policy fields, focused on sustainable development, and those in IT with the interest and training to harness all manner of information technology in pursuit of sustainability. Tomlinson explores many examples and uses a cogent narrative to demonstrate that the fusion is emerging, albeit, with far too little recognition and appreciation. This book makes good reading for techno-skeptics who undervalue the contributions IT has and is continuing to make and for techno-optimists who will learn through this comprehensive treatment how far the fusion has come. --Daniel A. Mazmanian, Bedrosian Chair in Governance and environmental policy scholar, The School of Policy, Planning, and Development, University of Southern California, coeditor of Toward Sustainable Communities "I strongly recommend Greening through IT. This is a timely and extremely valuable book that covers the environmental systems. When about 60% of the world population is currently facing malnutrition and when it is projected that in 30 to 40 years oil reserves will be depleted, this will have a major impact on food production and other environmental problems worldwide." --David Pimentel, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Cornell University "Green is the new digital. IT is the macroscope needed to understand it. What feels counterintuitive at the beginning of this book is obvious by the end." --Nicholas Negroponte, Founding Chairman Emeritus, MIT Media Lab, Founder and Chairman, One Laptop per Child