Climate Emergency Declaration & Green Hosting

CLIMATE EMERGENCY DECLARATION & GREEN HOSTING

Map of Essex 1777 declares a Climate and Ecological Emergency. The scientific evidence is clear: we are on course for a catastrophic rise in global temperatures if we don’t reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net-zero. The 2018 Special Report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) gives us until 2030 to avert the worst effects of this man-made environmental disaster.

Map of Essex 1777 is a Heritage Declares signatory as an expression of its commitment to take action about climate change. The roots of heritage conservation, with its call for inter-generational solidarity and responsible stewardship of the inherited world, are deeply interwoven with those of the environmental movement. Map of Essex 1777 is a digital heritage project hosted on a verified green hosting service which purchases 300% more renewable energy than it consumes – making Map of Essex 1777 a climate positive digital resource.


ACT TODAY TO HELP SPEED UP THE TRANSITION TOWARDS A GREEN INTERNET

Did you know the Internet is one of the world’s largest polluters?

The Internet industry consumes enormous amounts of energy. The backbone of the Internet consist of dedicated buildings called data centres which house millions of servers which are continuously running. A large data centre is an industrial-scale operation consuming as much electricity as a small town.

Data centres worldwide draw energy from their respective power grids. Most energy in our power grids is produced by carbon polluting sources such as coal, oil or gas. In 2012 there were ½ million data centres worldwide – today there are over 8 million, an increase of 16 fold in 7 years.

The Internet is the fastest-growing carbon polluting industry and it will eclipse all other industries in terms of worldwide pollution. Today, data centres account for 2% of the world’s carbon emissions, that is as much as the airline industry! But it doesn’t stop there – data centre pollution is expected to grow to 14% of the world’s entire carbon emissions by 2040 – unless we ACT NOW.

WHAT CAN YOU DO?

If you visit a website that isn’t green hosted contact the owner and ask them to switch, use The Green Web Foundation website to check.

If you visit a green hosted website that doesn’t show The Green Web Foundation badge (below) contact the owner and ask them to display to help promote the transition towards a green Internet.

If you run a website from a carbon polluting data centre ask the web hosting provider to go green, state your concerns and intention to migrate to a green solution if they can’t accommodate, if necessary visit The Green Hosting Directory to find a verified alternative green hosting service.

Thank you for reading and taking crucial action to tackle the climate crisis.

Tim Fransen
Managing Director, Map of Essex 1777