Dark Clouds - To the Cloud: Big Data in a Turbulent World - page 135

an F for transparency but squeaked out D marks in the other categories.
Apple, which fared slightly better (two Cs and an F), had the worst record
for coal intensity, faring a bit worse than Facebook. However, the most
striking inding, and the most disappointing for anyone expecting different
behavior from companies that like to polish their own halos, is that, with
rare exceptions, cloud-computing companies, including all the big names
in hardware, software, social media, and big data, behave no differently
from their industrial predecessors.
Greenpeace has not only taken the lead in shining a light on the sad
environmental record of IT companies. It has also been a leader in activ-
ism. In April 2012, people with the organization climbed to the top of
Amazon's new corporate headquarters in Seattle, directly across the street
from Microsoft's corporate center, and rappelled from the roof to hang a
banner in the shape of a cloud that read, “Amazon, Microsoft: How Clean
Is Your Cloud?” Following the event, Greenpeace's IT analyst explained
the protest to Wired magazine: “If we want to get to a renewable energy
economy, we can't get there without leadership from these companies.
For too long, too many of the energy decisions have been dictated by a
small set of companies who are very happy with the status quo” (ibid.).
The companies insist that they are making positive strides, but they also
maintain that large data centers are intrinsically better for the environment
than having every individual or organizational user house its own data
(ibid.). Environmentalists insist that Amazon will have to do much more
than build photo-op-ready greenhouses in downtown Seattle.
It is dificult enough to contemplate a sustainable cloud from the supply
side, but it is even more challenging when one considers the seemingly
unstoppable demand for cloud services from organizations and individu-
als. Supply and demand are interconnected, as is evident throughout the
promotional culture of cloud computing. For those who market the cloud,
customers should not only want cloud services, but also demand them as
a right. A 2013 advertisement for Sprint makes this abundantly clear as
a young male voice recites a spiritual ode to technology while a sublime
montage zips by:
The miraculous is everywhere.
In our homes, in our minds.
We can share every second