We’re green.
April 20, 2007 on 3:26 pm | In Insider View, New Features, Promotions, Tech News, Updates by Brett |Effective today, DreamHost is now a carbon-neutral company.
That’s awesome!
But what does it mean?… It means a few things, actually!
It means we’ve calculated our carbon footprint. Our footprint represents the impact of everything that DreamHost uses and leaves behind in the course of our daily work. All of the resources that we use - paper in the office, electricity for our 1300+ servers, even the gas in our cars that bring us to the office - leaves behind some kind of soul-sucking residue in the world.
Electrical power plant emissions clog up our atmosphere. Cars idling in LA’s renowned freeway traffic turn the skyline a muddy brown. Angry profanity-laced faxes are printed on laser printers which generate headache-inducing ozone. (Thanks for those, by the way.)
Putting a price on carbon output is just one way to help make the world a better place. It’s a first step towards true energy sustainability. Organizations large and small are constantly working on reducing their environmental emissions to meet government-imposed (and self-imposed) emissions caps. When they do so a neutral third party then steps in to verify the reduction and issues what are known as “emission reduction credits”.
Companies like DreamHost can purchase these credits which are then immediately retired on their behalf. This effectively takes them off the market and the money goes toward funding further emission reduction projects. We are not currently able to actually power our servers with the wind or the sun, and this is the next best thing!
The market for purchasing voluntary offsets is blowing up right now, and as such it’s a bit of a wild west.
You can find “offsets” for as little as ~$5 at ton all the way up to $30. At the low end you risk purchasing an offset that is not actually doing what it says.
To ensure we got the good stuff we worked with The Green Office to obtain credits with true value that aren’t considered “trash tags”. We learned that our ecological footprint is 30,600 acres and we generate 2725 tons of CO2 per year. That’s about the same amount as 545 average homes!
We’ve offset that by doing a few things.
We’ve purchased Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) certified by Green-e. RECs don’t offset electricity-related emissions, but combined with the purchase of regular electricity they do help us to avoid them.
We’ve also purchased carbon credits certified by The Gold Standard. These credits come directly from reductions that meet standards established by the Kyoto Protocol and offset emissions from projects that would otherwise not exist.
We’re also looking for more ways to reduce our resource usage around the office and the data center. We’ve switched to using coffee cups made from fully renewable resources. In the last couple of years we’ve also been deploying many more servers with notoriously power-efficient AMD processors. As processor and server technology continues to evolve we’ll follow the path of power efficiency. It just makes sense!
And because Los Angeles is so large we’ve also got two offices on either side of the expanding megalopolis to ensure our employees spend less time sitting in traffic and more time not polluting.
“Big deal, DreamHost! Yahoo’s already carbon neutral! You missed out on the PR train to Happytown.”
Yeah well, Yahoo’s cool and all…but they’re not carbon neutral YET and so their train is broken down between Happytown and Pollutiontown! They’re still brown! Here’s a clown!
It only took us three days to go from “Hey let’s do this” status to “Hey it’s done!” status. Three days and several thousand dollars, but that’s another story. You don’t have to be a tree-hugger to appreciate the value of renewable energy and you don’t have to charge a premium for your services to afford it, either.
Every single DreamHost customer now benefits from our carbon neutral status. If you’re a DreamHost customer trying to reduce your footprint on the environment, rest assured that your hosting is taken care of! You are welcome!
Maybe you want to brag about how green your hosting is. We can hardly blame you! We’ve made some images below to help with that.
If you run into any of these icons in your web travels, click them! You’ll be taken to a page that’ll confirm (or deny) that the site is hosted with us and is therefore green!
If you’re a DreamHost customer and want to add these icons to YOUR site, just visit the “Home > Green Hosting” section of your DreamHost account control panel for linking instructions.
We may not be the first green web host out there but we’re probably the largest. Maybe we can encourage the whole industry to do it. It’s not really that expensive and it’s worth it!
PEACE OUT!
April 20th, 2007 at 4:25 pm
You’re not at all worried that all these carbon offset trusts are just someone’s bright idea how to make an awful lot of money very quickly, cashing in on globalwarming™, and in turn do absolutely nothing, well maybe donate some of the money, but how much do they take for themselves? I’m very sceptical, especially as you might as well be buying a product which you will never see, at least I haven’t seen any wind or solar plants popping up where I live.
Governments should simply introduce voluntary green taxes and use the money to build renewable energy sources in those countries, at least then when the budget comes around everyone can see what is actually being done.
I must be missing something?
April 20th, 2007 at 4:56 pm
I’m very impressed. Thank you for going carbon neutral, Dreamhost.
April 20th, 2007 at 5:03 pm
What do you mean
“We’ve switched to using coffee cups made from fully renewable resources”
Disposable cups?
Get some mugs and wash the damn dishes.
April 20th, 2007 at 5:04 pm
er….
kudos to you on the rest of it though. Well done
April 20th, 2007 at 5:08 pm
> Get some mugs and wash the damn dishes.
This greatly overestimates the ability for DreamHost employees to wash dishes in a consistent and timely manner.
We’ve tried that, before, but suffice to say while we’ve always been for introducing a diverse culture to our offices that’s not quite what we had in mind…
- Jeff @ DreamHost
April 20th, 2007 at 5:11 pm
It’s a catch-22.
If you wash dishes you’re dirtying water that empties out into the ocean.
Renewable coffee cups are compostable!
April 20th, 2007 at 5:41 pm
Does this mean you are going to fix your down time issues?
April 20th, 2007 at 7:06 pm
Well, this is all nice to hear.
But wouldn’t it be more effective to spend the money on redundancy and better infrastructure so as to reduce all the hot air released by customers who are having issues? Wouldn’t the hot air reduction count for something?
:P
April 20th, 2007 at 7:10 pm
Aj -
We are continuously spending large amounts of money to improve redundancy and revising infrastructure.
Doing one does not preclude the other.
- Jeff @ DreamHost
April 20th, 2007 at 7:11 pm
Why are you wasting the money I pay you on some pie in the sky fraud that does nothing toward providing the service I pay you to provide? All you are doing is making my bill higher than it would otherwise be, and giving your competitors a leg up on cost. This global warming scam is a ruse aimed at imposing world-wide socialism. Catch up with the truth, look through the hype. Take it straight from Al, the “inventor of the internet…”
April 20th, 2007 at 7:39 pm
The idea that global warming is caused by carbon has been become one of the biggest political activist movements of our generation. Politicians pay scientists to give them the answers that they like, i.e. “global warming is caused by CO2.” Unfortunately, real science is inconclusive at best on the CO2 issue. It is much more likely that our climate cycle is driven largely by solar cycles, so maybe you should really look for some kind of solar offset credits to waste your money on!
Al Gore and these so-called green-energy businesses are just laughing all the way to the bank while people who know no better buy into their fantasy world ideas about global warming.
April 20th, 2007 at 7:50 pm
Oh.. I forgot to add… when called out on the issue, those who have “bought in” to this scam tend to weep, wail, gnash teeth, pull out hair, and of course call dissenters all kinds of nasty, insulting names… so before you decide to reply with those sorts of reactions, please know that I’m fine with that, I find it quite entertaining, and it clearly bolsters my opinion of the issue…
April 20th, 2007 at 8:11 pm
Thanks for caring. Thanks for doing something positive, and doing it proudly in the face of declining yet persistent cynicism. Staying the course, you’ll find two things:
1. that the only negative comments you’ll ever get are from people who mention money.
and, logically
2. a sustainable economy is the future. There’s simply no way to avoid it living on a planet with a finite amount of resources and a population growing at an exponential rate.
April 21st, 2007 at 1:32 am
@Skeptic:
I agree that the crazy idea that ‘pollution is bad’ is a scam. As part of an effort to raise awareness about this incredible scam-o-rama, I have organized an internet protest and petition called ‘Tail Pipes Across America.’ All this week we will be taking signatures to send to capitol hill to tell the government and its cronies to get their noses out of our garages! Sunday will be the culminating event when we will all, from the privacy of our own garages, Suck A Tailpipe. Proving once and for all that pollution is awesome and a fundamental right.
See ya there!
April 21st, 2007 at 1:33 am
Let me ask first; Is the datacenter(s) recycling the excess heat?
I am glad that environmental friendliness has come in vogue though, it actually pays off to be environmental friendly which makes industries to jump on the bandwagon. (not to mention the PR-value)
However, China has made no efforts to become environmental friendly and nor did Indida. Why is this important? Well, they are two of the biggest industrial powers in the world and they are continuing to grow by the second. If these two (and a couple of other major players) aren’t implementing the Kyoto agreement, it is half-useless imo.
The USA did refuse into the longest to sign the Kyoto agreement, which is quite a shame for the nation’s government. Though it is not too late to make amends. (And not only on the co2 issue)
A long rant, but it is good news that Dreamhost is using this opportunity to both create more awareness of the issue, but also being able to get some publicity.
Good work! :)
April 21st, 2007 at 1:50 am
Skeptic -
> …and of course call dissenters all kinds of nasty, insulting
> names… so before you decide to reply with those sorts of
> reactions, please know that I’m fine with that, I find
While my guess is that you probably would be fine with that, we’re not going to call anyone any names. What would be the point of that?
The nice part about this whole thing is that we’re doing it on a completely voluntary basis - entailing no Federal tax hikes, extra regulation, etc. aimed toward you or anyone else.
While the costs to us are significant, they’re not so high that we’re going to raise our rates, either. At best, we do our own little part to leave a better environment for our children. At worst, we leave a somewhat smaller profit for ourselves every quarter. Either way, no skin off your nose.
I’m actually a free market kind of guy, personally, and hardly a fan of socialism - so if more and more private companies do their part voluntarily, the socialist dystopia you refer to can be avoided. Free market economy FTW! :)
Regards,
- Jeff @ DreamHost
April 21st, 2007 at 4:50 am
I got “dragged” into the “Green Zone” last summer during one of my drunken Bar-B-Cue bashes; a party guest went through all my trash and extracted all the plastic utensils. Wow…just, wow!
April 21st, 2007 at 7:14 am
Somewhere up in the heavens, P.T. Barnum is turning to Saint Peter and saying, “Told you so!”
April 21st, 2007 at 7:22 am
@rlparker
Now we know why u do (used to) spend so much time on these foruns… lol
You are afraid of organizing more BaC
lol
just kidding rlparker.
April 21st, 2007 at 9:25 am
[...] this is quite cool. My awesome webhost, Dreamhost, is now Carbon Neutral. that means that the websites I run are carbon [...]
April 21st, 2007 at 10:23 am
This post must be SCAM or JOKE take your pick! It ran on so long I didn’t have the patience to read it all. I am not sure which. However when anyone tells you they magically whisked away CO2 and can still power their business you know somewhere the math does not tally out correctly. Trees do not sequester CO2, they merely store it until they fall down and rot. Rot being a slow burn it re-releases the CO2. Thus any tree schemes are a scam. If this post is not a joke then its a sickening example of how people and businesses “go with the crowd think”. Only a sap believes the MMGW (man made global warming) story. Its the newest age religion of our day ( to be replaced soon by something else? ). These thing have such a tangible feel like the tattoo craze or disco in the 70’s. Only the technically untalented socially maladept fall for it. And thus it goes….another layer of phoniness gets painted over our culture taking it that many more steps towards completely OCD neurotic socialist behavior. I have to tell you having lived throught the 70’s this country gets less and less cool year that passes. But that is not due to CO2, its due to people who want to be “part of something”, even if that something is a sham.
April 21st, 2007 at 10:32 am
BTW: Composting cups is equivalent to slowing burning the cup. Thus creating and equal amount of CO2. Bacteria and fungi involved in the biodegradation process eat energy bearing material and use it in their metabolism just like you and I do. Thus you can burn the cup or feed the cup to the bacteria, you are doing the same thing. To any who want to find out why the earth warms or cools over the ages watch THE GREAT GLOBAL WARMING SWINDLE. It becomes readily apparent that todays slight warming is due to increased solar activity.
April 21st, 2007 at 10:37 am
[...] This morning when I logged on to view stats I saw a note about dreamhost going green. [...]
April 21st, 2007 at 10:39 am
Not so sure the Offset credit craze is really functional, and not just a bubble of ‘goldrush’ that will end up wasting money and causing more destructive ends than originally planned (thinking about the worts of things companies are doing to ‘offset’ the pollution doesn’t make me any more optimistic…dropping iron into the ocean to create coral reefs…sounds cool, but is it??? etc). However, it’s a start! And at least you’re moving in the green direction. Seriously! I would love to have a full article write up about this move. Could we do an interview? I’d like to know more of the why’s and future plans of DreamHost as far as greening the company is concerned.
I’ve updated my dreamhost referral link images to Green! http://www.humanecologyforum.org
Keep it up! Sersiouly, write me and let me know if a more formal/detailed piece could be made about the move to go green, and more on the future directions of Dreamhost and the greening process. I’d love to talk more directly with you, as a student of Human Ecology, i’m interested to hear you’re thoughts.
April 21st, 2007 at 10:49 am
Why do you people come here to complain? No one wants to hear your conspiracy theory on how Global Warming is bullshit. Go make your own blog for this.
To fred: Trees do release CO2 while decaying, but the rate of decay is significantly slower than the rate at which we, as a civilization, utilize and release the gas.
I totally respect Dreamhost for going a little out of their way to make a big statement. Whether these so-called ‘Carbon Credits’ are real or not, it’s a step in the right direction and it’s making it TRENDY to be environmentally concerned. Big businesses that are not truly concerned, will join in just so they can make people feel warm and fuzzy too.
If more and more companies jump on the bandwagon, it can only mean good things for the world we live in.
Thanks Dreamhost.
April 21st, 2007 at 11:02 am
You’re not any greener than before you idiots, you just bought your way out of it, since it’s “cool” to be green these days.
April 21st, 2007 at 11:11 am
Good work Dreamhost. We at http://www.appropedia.org have been discussing how to get a greener host. Thank you for taking the first steps. The next step is to focus on efficiency and reduction. Most businesses can greatly reduce their impact by engaging in conservative efforts that often pay for themselves. Your local energy authority should be able to help you. In addition feel free to leave a message at http://www.appropedia.org/A:VP where our vibrant body of contributors can help to give you advice. Next we can start working on the tax rebated photovoltaic system. -Lonny
April 21st, 2007 at 11:11 am
Good work Dreamhost. We at http://www.appropedia.org have been discussing how to get a greener host. Thank you for taking the first steps. The next step is to focus on efficiency and reduction. Most businesses can greatly reduce their impact by engaging in conservative efforts that often pay for themselves. Your local energy authority should be able to help you. In addition, feel free to leave a message at http://www.appropedia.org/A:VP where our vibrant body of contributors can help to give you advice. Next we can start working on the tax rebated photovoltaic system. -Lonny
April 21st, 2007 at 11:20 am
If this worked out to about eighty thousand dollars per year you are better off purchasing windmill and solar generators. It’s much better than lining the pockets who intend to “work” on the problem. It’s just a pyramid scheme.
April 21st, 2007 at 11:26 am
[...] company that I use to host this site, along with thinkerlabs and un’ed.i.ted spirituality has gone green. That’s right they are carbon-neutral… sort of. They are buying carbon credits to [...]
April 21st, 2007 at 11:44 am
Anyone who is interested in really critically thinking about the issues involved should follow the links included here in the post and read the information provided. Your cynicism is understandable and everyone needs to make up their own mind about how to best manage their long-term impact on the Earth. You can and should direct questions you have about the viability of these ‘carbon offsets’ to those organizations. They are dedicated to their mission and are here to help everyone understand the situation more clearly.
We’re not a company to blindly follow trends, but we’re also not so proud as to not jump on a bandwagon when it might help our own bottom line. We have done our own research and have determined that the impact of the step we have taken is significant and real. It is not the end-all be-all of environmental action but it is a step that is easily within the grasp of every American company doing business. We would love it if this action wasn’t PR-worthy at all because it would mean that our country and planet was just that much closer to realizing full energy sustainability.
The concept of purchasing carbon offsets to make our own negative impact on the environment disappear in a puff of smoke is abstract and not immediately comprehendible. Generating our own clean power as companies like Google have started doing would definitely be better and an even more powerful statement, but that’s just not possible for us at the moment. Now that we have committed to expending money to offset our carbon emissions we have a financial interest in actively reducing our global impact and will be putting effort into figuring out how we can move towards actually using the clean power we are now paying for.
While we are not blind to the potential marketing gains from this move, we don’t expect to actually make our money back directly. We mostly hope we may have some sort of small impact on other companies in our industry. Even if that doesn’t happen, perhaps we can at least spark a stimulating discussion.
I think this blog post sums things up pretty well, but if anyone is interested in more details about our stance on this issue and the exact nature of the step we have taken we can do our best to provide that to you.
April 21st, 2007 at 12:08 pm
Yet another reason I love you guys. Keep up the great work - you guys rock!
April 21st, 2007 at 12:12 pm
[...] Dreamhost went green! But what does it mean?… It means a few things, actually! [...]
April 21st, 2007 at 12:32 pm
[...] The fine folks at Dreamhost, who have been hosting this site for over a year now, have elected to become carbon neutral. [...]
April 21st, 2007 at 12:45 pm
props to the effort, but where exactly does all the money go?
these offsets everyone’s talking about, there has to be someone pocketing some if not all of it. there’s no way to actaully “offset” carbon output is there?
so now they’re going to go plant a few million trees with the money you’re using? i dont think so
dont bother answering
i’ve done my research
April 21st, 2007 at 1:11 pm
Regardless of what others say or think, dumping CO2 into the atmosphere at unnatural levels can never be seen as a good thing, and any effort to reduce that impact is noble and a step forward.
Sure, you can pollute the atmosphere all you want, but just know you’re responsible for the unknowable consequences of messing with this extremely complex system that we’re breathing and living in. Could be nothing, could be pretty bad, the fact is that it’s safer to be neutral and alive than stupid and dead. Thank you Dreamhost.
April 21st, 2007 at 1:15 pm
Shared hosting is a good way to make the ‘carbon’ cost per site low. I used to have a dedicated server, and most of the resources simply weren’t used.
MAGIC
April 21st, 2007 at 1:15 pm
RE: Angelo, the money’s used to support production of renewable energy. You’re essentially paying directly for the windmills and solar panels. The only reason it’s “offset” and not directly sourced is because the power grid is one big pool and they can’t run a line directly to you. Go figure. I don’t see what’s so hard to understand about that, or why you don’t want to believe it…
And actually do your research next time if you don’t want people answering you.
April 21st, 2007 at 1:26 pm
[...] View: Full post [...]
April 21st, 2007 at 1:36 pm
Thanks Dreamhost. I (a customer with several of my own customers using DH as well) am glad to see you take this step (without outside pressure! yay!) towards a greener future.
Mike, you’re confused, but I don’t blame you. “Politicians pay scientists to give them the answers that they like, i.e. ‘global warming is caused by CO2.’”. Oil companies have, for several years, funded counter-science operations to spread lies and confusion. Nobody ‘likes’ the idea that CO2–>Global Warming, but that doesn’t make it less true.
Don’t believe every…, er, ANYthing you hear from the liars at FOX News.
April 21st, 2007 at 1:44 pm
we are so glad,
thanks DREAMHOST
GreenPeace
April 21st, 2007 at 2:00 pm
[...] de hosting, por lo menos nos muestra una buena variación de su logo, ahora que dice “We’re green“ Mándalo a tu Twitter: :: temas que pueden estar relacionados :: Adán y Eva [...]
April 21st, 2007 at 2:31 pm
Quoting Nick. The third reply.
Disposable cups?
Get some mugs and wash the damn dishes.
It’s called corn starch cups. They use them on trains on cross country trips when they have no time to stop and no real trash cans. When they’re done with the cups, they throw them out the window and with in 2-3 days they are completely dissolved and they don’t hurt the environment because they are made from corn. before you get pissy try to find out what it is that someone is talking about. This is a great idea and I give them kudos for this idea.
April 21st, 2007 at 2:33 pm
So, I am a big Dreamhost fan. And, as it turns out, I am a big fan of our planet.
But for some reason, I am NOT a big fan of this. Frankly, it rather irritates me, and I’ll try to explain why.
Apart from all of the scientific debate (and there is quite a lot of it on this issue), the fact is that this does seem like a complete scam by just a different set of corporations trying to profit off of mindless hysteria.
Regarding Jeff’s comment above:
“At best, we do our own little part to leave a better environment for our children. At worst, we leave a somewhat smaller profit for ourselves every quarter.”
Actually,you’re half right. At best, you will be doing something (marginally) good.
At worst, however, you’re squandering money that could be more efficiently used elsewhere.
I am all for efficiency. I think that the new buzzword in the next decade or so will be efficiency, and I think that we all have a moral obligation to be as efficient, and productive with whatever we’re given.
I do, however, think that there is a moral hierarchy, and that some goods precede others.
Here is the problem I have with wasting money on carbon credits:
If you don’t pay them, and you’re less efficient, we MAY all see an effect in 2080, and some people MAY be affected.
But, every day, there are thousands of people starving, many of them within a few blocks of your own datacenter. And yet, they’re forgotten, because your carbon footprint has shrunk.
I’m not trying to tell you how to spend your money, and God knows that you’re entitled to giving to whatever cause you think worthy.
I do think though, that as sensible people, you would prefer to do a good that has a definite impact now, rather than a possible good, that might have an impact 70+ years from now.
I do realize that you would probably be criticized by someone no matter to what cause you gave, but I do think a good litmus test for giving would be on whether or not it actually has an impact, and in this case, it really is up in the air.
Okay, enough griping from me :)
April 21st, 2007 at 2:51 pm
[...] are created as a result of running their business. Green hosting goes mainstream! scooby doo fontread more | digg [...]
April 21st, 2007 at 3:10 pm
[...] It’s not actually green. However, my lovely hosting provider, Dreamhost, has just recently announced that they are now a carbon-neutral company. I feel that this is great that a company takes a step [...]
April 21st, 2007 at 3:49 pm
Jeff @ DreamHost :
I was making a joke, I tried to put “Open sharp bracket JOKE Close sharp bracket” followed by “Open sharp bracket slash JOKE Close sharp bracket”.
Whatever filter you use seemed to have ate it up.
April 21st, 2007 at 5:55 pm
I’ve read these responses and I think people tend to miss the obvious point. I would suspect that the money for this came out of the marketing budget. Obviously DH would not spend money marked for network expansion/growth on the envrionment (they are for profit after all), and look at the publicity they are landing (digg and their green gifs so far).
This change doesn’t really impact me at all and I’m not getting into any of the arguments, but I think it is a great reason to keep an eye on DH. They are an extremely lean company able to create, implement, and execute briliant strategies to keep them pertinent to their target market.
Keep up the alway-entertaining good work!
April 21st, 2007 at 7:03 pm
[...] hosting service, DreamHost, just announced that they have gone green! They are now “carbon neutral,” which does not mean they are not producing carbon [...]
April 21st, 2007 at 8:32 pm
Dreamhost Goes Green…
The webhost Dreamhost went green yesterday. A lively debate has started, but either way it is a step in the right direction. From their site:
“Effective today, DreamHost is now a carbon-neutral company. Thats awesome! But what does it mean? It …
April 21st, 2007 at 9:00 pm
[...] hosting provider of choice, DreamHost, is now carbon-neutral. If you want to save the Earth and your money with a $97 discount on their environmentally-friendly [...]
April 21st, 2007 at 9:53 pm
I’m so disappointed in you. I’ve been a customer for quite some time and I can’t believe you have bought into this. You do realize that the largest percentage of “greenhouse gases” is water vapor. If global warming really starts to happen (beyond the ~1 degree we’ve seen now) our only real recourse would be to pump our water into the vacuum of space. The percentage of that Co2 occupies in the remainder left from water vapor is minute.
Please return the money you are spending on these “credits” to your customers, or I suspect a number of us will go elsewhere.
Yours in the destruction of our planet,
Your customer.
April 22nd, 2007 at 12:20 am
Yahoo! and DreamHost: Environmental suckers…
If you’ve been reading RGR for a while, you might have noticed I’ve occasionally posted about environmental issues. The frequency with which I have done so has surprised me, as I’m not the sort of person one would typically mix up with an environmen…
April 22nd, 2007 at 2:17 am
I’m glad that I’ll be getting a shedload of referrals now!
April 22nd, 2007 at 3:18 am
Ignore any haters, this rocks!
April 22nd, 2007 at 7:31 am
Awesome. Continue to look into ways to use renewable energy to power your servers.
April 22nd, 2007 at 7:41 am
[...] pollutants that are created as a result of running their business. Green hosting goes mainstream!read more | digg story Posted by brett [...]
April 22nd, 2007 at 7:48 am
to everyone voicing their opinion on global warming, which EVER way you feel: please please please backup your claims with references to PEER-REVIEWED LITERATURE.
as a student of ocean and earth sciences in my final year i have come to appreciate the importance of referencing everything. it’s basic common sense, if you want someone to believe you, you must provide evidence. web-links don’t count - anyone can write something and post it on the web. Not even the ray gun robot report had any references. a 1st year student could have produced a more scientific report.
so please, everyone, when you make a point always try to provide evidence and look at the issue from a neutral point of view.
April 22nd, 2007 at 9:05 am
Is that why my websites have been down off and on for days? Do you only generate electricity when it’s windy?
April 22nd, 2007 at 9:08 am
I am one very pleased customer to find that my webhost is concerned with trying to be green–among with being a good host.
April 22nd, 2007 at 12:00 pm
So this came out of the advertising budget, right?
Because I’m all for it in the sense that it’s great advertising and will increase your tree-hugging customer to non-tree-hugging customer ration. (In my experience the hippys are rarely the ones who are a real PITA)
/Global warming is real. The idea that it’s not natural and/or our fault is a scam.
April 22nd, 2007 at 1:41 pm
We don’t want to give up our exorbitant lifestyles, so we’ll pay someone to force impoverished Africans to do it!
April 22nd, 2007 at 1:44 pm
Awesome!
where exactly does all the money go?
Every single DreamHost customer is good!
April 22nd, 2007 at 3:12 pm
[...] was recently announced by Dreamhost (my host of choice) that they have gone Green. Yay! I feel good knowing I’m using a service who is conscientious of being kind to the [...]
April 22nd, 2007 at 3:17 pm
@Fred: Have you heard about more enviornmental friendly equipment and practices? It is possible to cut down on toxins coming out of a production/production enviornment. (It is not a “zero-sum game”.)
April 22nd, 2007 at 8:59 pm
alex, congrats on finishing your degree.
Here are some peer-reviewed journal articles to read:
Khilyuk, L.F., and G. V. Chilingar. 2006. On global forces of nature driving the Earth’s climate. Are humans involved? Environmental Geology, 50, 899–910
Friis-Christensen E, Lassen K (1991) Length of the solar cycle: an indicator of solar activity closely associated with climate. Science 254:698–700
Lassen K, Friis-Christensen E (1995) Variability of the solar cycle length during the past five centuries and the apparent association with terrestrial climate. J Atmos Terr Phys 57:835–845
April 22nd, 2007 at 9:49 pm
Get Real. You are just trying to capture the audience of tree huggers and green activists. Your just doing this cause it’s the “in” thing right now. Improve your hosting and you’ll get 10x more customers.
April 22nd, 2007 at 10:04 pm
[...] was announced this week that my webhost, DreamHost has gone Carbon Neutral. Yep, they’ve gone green which means [...]
April 22nd, 2007 at 11:25 pm
Trees do not on net remove CO2. While rot may occur at a different rate than growth it does not matter. The reason being that the pile of composting felled trees merely builds up to such a height that equalibrium is eventually reached. The decay rate == removal rate. Chris shows how the technically unskilled are sucked in. They are unprotected by the shield of critical thinking required to pull apart the ideas of charlatans.
April 23rd, 2007 at 2:22 am
[...] the weekend, Stick of Wrong was moved to the Dreamhost hosting, if only because it saves a ton of money to do so, especially since there’s multiple [...]
April 23rd, 2007 at 3:05 am
[...] have just announced that they are now a carbon neutral organisation. They claim to have offset their carbon emissions [...]
April 23rd, 2007 at 3:05 am
[...] have just announced that they are now a carbon neutral organisation. They claim to have offset their carbon emissions [...]
April 23rd, 2007 at 4:50 am
DreamHost - the best from the best! =)
…
Best Regards
April 23rd, 2007 at 6:07 am
[...] Приятна мисъл… че дори и докато спиш, сайтът ти продължава да работи и е зелен-зеленичък при това (повече за инициативата на DreamHost може да прочетете на официалния блог на DreamHost). [...]
April 23rd, 2007 at 7:15 am
[...] yey !- im glad we’re still with dreamhost and it’s where we have all our domains… [...]
April 23rd, 2007 at 10:26 am
This customer is happy DreamHost is making any kind of effort. I’m going to grab a graphic for my sites now.
If nothing else, raising the awareness of the issue is a good thing.
April 23rd, 2007 at 12:56 pm
I am a proud to give my hosting dollars to a socially responsible company like Dreamhost. Way to go!
April 23rd, 2007 at 2:02 pm
I’m hosting at Sellwebhost.com and their price and service is amazing !!
April 23rd, 2007 at 5:28 pm
Jon,
Why would anyone want to switch to a company that would host a spamming dirtbag like yourself?
April 24th, 2007 at 4:22 am
[...] Per ulteriori informazioni: http://blog.dreamhost.com/2007/04/20/were-green/ [...]
April 24th, 2007 at 11:03 am
Thanks for reminding us that some things are more important than money and that you know how to be a responsible company. We hope other companies follow suit.
April 24th, 2007 at 12:10 pm
Wondering Said:
“@Skeptic:
I agree that the crazy idea that ‘pollution is bad’ is a scam. As part of an effort to raise awareness about this incredible scam-o-rama, I have organized an internet protest and petition called ‘Tail Pipes Across America.’ All this week we will be taking signatures to send to capitol hill to tell the government and its cronies to get their noses out of our garages! Sunday will be the culminating event when we will all, from the privacy of our own garages, Suck A Tailpipe. Proving once and for all that pollution is awesome and a fundamental right.
See ya there!”
Is this happening this coming Sunday the 29th? I can’t wait to fire up the Hummer and suck a tailpipe! This is gonna be big! We’ll show those smelly greedy money-grubbing scam-artist hippies who’s boss! All their tree-hugging and granola-munching can’t help them now. Mwahahahha!
April 24th, 2007 at 12:45 pm
[...] This carbon neutral thing is really taking off with online companies. DreamHost, who hosts some of my websites, including this one, has gone carbon neutral. [...]
April 24th, 2007 at 5:25 pm
[...] to a post on Dreamhost’s blog, one of the most widely-recognized webhosting companies has gone [...]
April 24th, 2007 at 6:39 pm
I only joined Dreamhost a little while ago and I am so very glad I did. You guys just keep getting better and better!
And thanks so much for ignoring the idiots who think global warming is a fad and all the moneygrubbing dissenters who have nothing better to do with their time than complain! You guys are truly an inspiration!
April 24th, 2007 at 7:49 pm
[...] the image on the right side, Dreamhost buys Carbon Credits to offset its usage for the 1300+ servers it runs (which hosts http://www.hippygreen.com). So not only is [...]
April 24th, 2007 at 7:55 pm
[...] Dreamhost ftw. Effective today, DreamHost is now a carbon-neutral company. [...]
April 25th, 2007 at 9:30 am
[...] For further info check: http://blog.dreamhost.com/2007/04/20/were-green/ [...]
April 25th, 2007 at 9:43 am
Well done Dreamhost! Offsetting isn’t really the solution long term, but you seem to know that, and do actually seem to give a sh*t about reducing your footprint. Nice one :)
April 25th, 2007 at 11:51 am
[...] announced a few days ago that they’ve become a “carbon-neutral” company. This basically means (and correct [...]
April 25th, 2007 at 12:51 pm
Despite the naysayers, the pessimists and the narrow-minded, I am particularly happy that you’ve taken this step. While carbon neutrality leaves a lot to be desired yet—and may not be as proactive a solution to the challenges posed by our dependence on energy and industrial growth—I am still happy to see you care enough to take the step.
When I emailed you last month asking about what steps DreamHost was taking to move towards a more sustainable business model, I had no idea this was in the works!
Believe it or not, I have been considering switching to a greener service provider but now I feel comfortable staying put. Thank you!
April 25th, 2007 at 8:00 pm
Admirable effort om your part for your reasons….
What all the pundits of this Global Warming thing fail to dis-close is that they are looking at only a snippet of time.
That as a planet we are coming out of the last Ice Age and that this means “Getting Warmer”
That about 64 million years ago a catastrophic event led to a major deletion of carbon in our atmosphere by tying it up as what we call petroleum deposits.
That maybe we are just restoring the natural balance.
But one does not obtain grant money for stating that there is no problem…you must create a “Demon” that must be addressed to then get money to study it…
April 25th, 2007 at 9:01 pm
This blog is officially carbon neutral…
Yeah, that’s right. This bloated website, which is like an SUV on the information superhighway due to my habit of uploading ungodly amounts of images, is officially “carbon neutral.” Apparently, Dreamhost, the wonderful SoCal based company that host…
April 26th, 2007 at 5:13 am
[...] URL Indicating Carbon Neutrality It means we’ve calculated our carbon footprint. Our footprint represents the impact of everything [...]
April 27th, 2007 at 12:02 pm
[...] Web host is now carbon neutral. (I had been writing to them repeatedly about this.) Well I guess that solves that [...]
April 27th, 2007 at 12:15 pm
Thank you so much for doing this! Every little bit helps.
April 27th, 2007 at 12:16 pm
Thank you so much for doing this! Global warming is the single most important issue we’ll face and every little bit helps. :)
April 27th, 2007 at 12:22 pm
While I think the carbon credits are a bit of scam, I still applaud the effort. I hope you are also doing things like not using paper cups, and using eco-friendly products and stuff too.
April 29th, 2007 at 11:08 am
[...] DreamHost tells us why they’re green [...]
April 29th, 2007 at 2:33 pm
[...] to offset your carbon emissions and that is what DreamHost has done. You can read their blog post here.I think that climate change is very important to all of us, even if our governments have no idea [...]
April 30th, 2007 at 5:53 pm
We’re green…
Through absolutely no effort on my part, FuzzyCo is now is a green-hosted (”carbon neutral”) site. Yay!……
April 30th, 2007 at 11:10 pm
Personally… I think it’s fantastic. Bravo DH.
May 1st, 2007 at 2:13 am
Great. The button is up and running on my dh-hosted ecology blog =) That’s the first time I happily link to my host and advertise. Thanks!
May 1st, 2007 at 2:24 am
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/48e334ce-f355-11db-9845-000b5df10621.html
The FT investigation found:
- Widespread instances of people and organisations buying worthless credits that do not yield any reductions in carbon emissions.
May 1st, 2007 at 9:07 pm
[...] popular web hosting company, Dreamhost, announced recently that they’ve "gone green" by becoming carbon-neutral. Although the bulk of the [...]
May 2nd, 2007 at 6:19 am
Good start! How about Fair Trade next?
May 2nd, 2007 at 11:07 am
[...] Link to DreamHost Blog [...]
May 2nd, 2007 at 11:07 am
[...] Link to DreamHost Blog [...]
May 3rd, 2007 at 12:37 pm
http://images.salon.com/comics/boll/2007/05/03/boll/story.gif
What next? Server downtime offsets? @$#-hole offsets?
May 3rd, 2007 at 2:26 pm
[...] it was a happy surprise when one of the hosting companies I use (such as this blog), Dreamhost, announced they are carbon neutral. What this means is they’ve purchased certificates from a carbon offset provider. You can be [...]
May 3rd, 2007 at 7:09 pm
While I prefer reduction to offsets, it’s a good immediate step while you get organized.
For those who question offsets, there is a logic behind it (which is not to say all organizations do it properly).
The idea is simply to fund new projects that aim to reduce the current emmissions on earth. So, if Dreamhost pays to have an Indian coal factory taken offline and replaced with a solar field, there is a net reduction in emissions. What’s wrong with that?
May 3rd, 2007 at 8:15 pm
Great start. Whether or not the credits are the right way to go your corporate heart is in the right place; Trying to make the world better than you found it. Refreshing in todays culture.
Next step should be to look into consolidating some of those 1300 servers. As stated above you are running mostly AMDs but if you jump into some other hardware (sparcs or say p-series) you can still run linux (or a version-V derivative) and most, if not all, of the great stuff you currently have available. Plus get hardware that hits five nines of reliabliity. All while using less electrcity (fewer machines) and generating less heat (less climate control costs) and reducing your data center floor size.
Just a thought.
May 3rd, 2007 at 11:55 pm
[...] from the May 2007 newsletter where Josh Jones describes his motivation for turning Dreamhost into a carbon neutral hosting company: Another thing that helps me write newsletters when my bowels are completely compacted is to think [...]
May 4th, 2007 at 12:03 am
Very nice one, I really like this. I was considering going the same route by supporting a similar program here in The Netherlands to offset my usage of your servers. Maybe I’ll still do it, and thus double the support for these projects, at least for my teensy party of the DreamHost systems.
May 4th, 2007 at 12:53 am
Excellent, nice work guys this is brilliant news, and further cements your reputation as the most forward-thinking hosting company anywhere.
It also makes me even happier to be a customer of yours!
May 4th, 2007 at 2:32 am
[...] información en su blog y en su web. Ah, y si pulsas el banner en mi menú lateral verás que yo también soy ecológico pq [...]
May 4th, 2007 at 3:56 am
BOGUS. “Buying” “green” is nothing at all. Where are your renewable electricity-run servers?
ThinkHost has 100 % RENE2WABLE ENERGY
May 4th, 2007 at 3:58 am
I can’t promote this, because offsets are a joke. I think I’ll fly around the world a dozen times and “offeset” my CO2 (a la Richard Branson). I think I’ll keep driving my Hummer forever and “offset” the CO2. See?
May 4th, 2007 at 5:26 am
Buying “indulgences” from the Church of Gore, eh? Suckers!
May 4th, 2007 at 7:59 am
Carbon offsets may be funny, but all the wailing about them is just as funny. =) I personally like the way it erodes the notion that “OMG we need to have the Government Do Something or we will all Die!!!” attitude. But when we’re all industrialized and rich, we can afford to do things like this. Funny how the developing countries don’t seem to worry as much. Anyway.
Just remember, people: Changing the atmosphere is like turning an aircraft carrier, only a lot slower. Don’t mistake panic for virtue.
May 4th, 2007 at 9:15 am
haters, haters everywhere. i recommend dreamhost to everyone i come across who needs a site hosted. you guys have a great service, despite what the haters say. keep up the good work. and thank you for taking a positive step.
May 4th, 2007 at 9:54 am
Web hosting is infrastructure for me. Like a hot water heater and home plumbing, it needs to be there, even when I’m not using it, so that it can be there when I *am* using it. Because I’m already consuming (and intending to consume) your service by paying you money in return for uptime, the only choice I face is not whether to have an impact - I’m already having one - but whether or not to attempt to give something back.
For this reason, I really appreciate you factoring environmental impact donations into your business plan. Thank you. This has value to me - in fact I would rather pay more and do business with a host attempting to be green than pay less and do business with one who does not. It also has value for the people I provide services to via Dreamhost hosting. Some of them may choose to display the “green” logo and may make green status a choice in future host purchasing decisions, for the same reasons they have chosen to recycle, purchase fuel-economy cars, or bike to work.
I’m most impressed by the fact that this was not (as far as I can tell) a reaction to overwhelming customer demand and outrage - it was proactive. I needn’t watch Dreamhost like a hawk to ensure that it will behave in the way I would want people in my community to behave (for example, keeping their trash off the street). Instead, this indicates that Dreamhost will by a good citizen, addressing social issues as they arise and attempting to do the right thing. That general stance is worth at least as much to me as your position on this *particular* issue, if not more.
May 4th, 2007 at 9:56 am
[...] Green Site By Modern Hiker So I just found out … a few weeks after it happened … that my web host company done went and gone carbon neutral. [...]
May 4th, 2007 at 9:57 am
Some reactions here are focused on the idea that environmental impact donations are either insufficient or no substitute for lowered consumption (or both). I’m not certain the carbon emission credits are the *best* or *only* solution - green hardware to lower the footprint is good too. But, bizarrely, some of these comments also suggest greater hardware redundancy (i.e. more consumption) as a *alternative* place for Dreamweaver to put whatever resources it put towards offsets.
Yes, fuels cost less with dirty extraction operations. Yes, money spent on cleaning up oil spills could instead been spent lowering shipping costs to the pump. Perhaps some of us would prefer companies that successful avoided cleaning up its spills, and passed those savings on to us at the pump.
Carbon emissions are a negative externality - like waste dumped in the river, it costs the individual less to ignore it than to pay for control or disposal - and it costs less because the costs are passed on to everyone. But ignoring a negative externality has a poor track record of success. I don’t want to do it. I’m glad Dreamhost doesn’t either.
May 4th, 2007 at 12:36 pm
Excellent work guys!
I am very proud of you, because you are doing this move for all the right reasons. There will always be nay-sayers, even if evidence hit them on the head. Everyone has the freedom to choose to believe whatever they want. However no matter how you slice it or dice it, we all live in one environment (planet Earth) and as such have a responsibility to keep it liveable for all other beings, not just human. That is a concept of altruism. Even if the sun did warm up the planet, how do you explain all the pesticides, mercury and bazillion other chemicals that are in our water, earth and air? It didn’t get there from the sun.
Point is, there are some inescapable facts and and anyone who will do a little bit of research will see that we are polluting our planet beyond belief. I find that people who say that this whole global warming theory is a new religion, or a ploy to milk us of off our money, etc. are missing the point completely. Think about it. If you lived with 100 people in an apartment building, and everyone trashed the place like there is no tomorrow, would you blame it on the sun or cosmic rays? Nope. We all need to take responsibility for our actions.
I am very much impressed Dreamhost stepped up to the plate and did this. I am not naive that offsetting is the final and best solution; far from it. However it is *a* solution and a beginning towards a brighter and more responsible future. Dreamhost made it very clear they are committed to further findind solutions to their ecological footprint, and that is the correct path to go down.
Bravo
May 4th, 2007 at 12:47 pm
Sue,
before you speak and lash out, it would be worthwhile if you did your *minimal* research. ThinkHost is doing something very, very similar to DreamHost. They buy green energy, which is akin to offsetting their carbon usage, since they don’t actually get ‘clean watts’, but use the regular grid and they buy green certificates. http://www.thinkhost.com/socialchange/renewable-energy-hosting.shtml
Not that I am shooting ThinkHost down - far from it - I am just saying that what Thinkhost is doing is not that different from what DreamHost is doing.
Instead of criticizing, it would be worthwhile to congratulate companies like Dreamhost that they care and are doing something about the problem. And as they stated, they are investigating other solutions as well, namely how to lower their consumption of resources in the first place.
Please think before you speak. There are enough haters on this forum and people that have nothing better to do then trash any efforts others make.
May 4th, 2007 at 12:55 pm
Hello,
Sounds good to me…I will not pertend to be overly researched however I must say that whether or not you think humans and primarily responsible for global warming I must say that any money spent on helping prevent the injuring of our planet is benificial…I will put one of those little green logos on my page now…bye
May 4th, 2007 at 1:12 pm
[...] your web site DreamHost goes green! By buying certified Renewable Energy Credits they can now call themself a carbon-neutral company. [...]
May 4th, 2007 at 1:52 pm
So, has Dreamhost done due diligence with respect to the “carbon offset” company they are working with?
Please tell us where the money is going and how it is offsetting your “footprint”.
BTW - I’m stopping at Lowe’s tonight to get some plants for my yard. I guess I should save the receipts. I should be able to recover the cost buy selling indulgences (er, I mean credits) plus 30% for “administrative fees.”
Great idea! Thanks! I’m gonna be rich!
Reverend Money
Church of Gore
May 4th, 2007 at 5:33 pm
> So, has Dreamhost done due diligence with respect to
> the “carbon offset” company they are working with?
Yes, we have, actually.
If you’ll re-read the article you’ll find that we mention that well aware that the market is a bit of a “wild west” right now and that not all offsets are created equally. We researched all of the available options and chose to partner with multiple organizations that we felt would do the most with what we gave them.
We do not make a habit of just tossing our money down the drain unless we have some idea that it’s going to be put to good use.
In any case, I will reiterate: We recognize that the best thing would be to convert to 100% renewable resources (ie. solar). We’re unable to do that (yet!), so the choices we were left with were to either find one or more reputable organizations to partner with to purchase credits or simply do nothing at all. We went with the former.
That’s not to say that we won’t do more down the road, as options open up.
You know, we have to admit to being a bit surprised and dismayed at the snarky and negative reaction by some on this. We’re not passing along these costs to customers (and have no plans to do so) - it’s coming straight out of our own profits I honestly can’t understand why someone would be mad at a company for doing something - even if it’s not 100% perfect - to lessen its net environment impact, especially when it doesn’t hurt them in the slightest.
- Jeff @ DreamHost
May 4th, 2007 at 7:55 pm
HAH. I’m rather enjoying the ignorant descent of the head-in-the-sand crew here. Looks like you guys hit a nerve with the “no such thing as global warming, clean air and water are bad m’kay, putting my fingers in my ears now before you can try and talk sense into me LALALALALALAA” folks.
Keep up the great work, both environmentally and agitating the ignorant. ;)
May 5th, 2007 at 5:29 am
You guys are great! It sounds like you really have disturbed the flatearth people. But we know it’s round and I DO appreciate what you are doing. Just for that I am going to transfer another of my URL’s to YOU!
May 5th, 2007 at 4:33 pm
[...] was pleased to see that DreamHost, the company that this blog is hosted on has become carbon neurtal . It would be good to see few more companies taking this [...]
May 5th, 2007 at 5:01 pm
Don’t forget to buy flatulence offsets too.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/03/070306-warming-credits.html
May 6th, 2007 at 4:39 am
Awesome guys.
Actually, I find it quite disturbing at the number of people who were rubbishing this idea… Do that many people really think like that?
*Shakes head*
Anyway, keep up the good work, and don’t mind the criticism– there are plenty of people out here who appreciate what you’re doing.
Cheers.
Ash.
May 6th, 2007 at 9:55 am
Manyhighways is Green…
src=”https://secure.newdream.net/green5.png” height=”75″ width=”75″ class=”floatleft”> I’d just like to point out that my hosting company, Dreamhost, is now “carbon neutral” which means that they are contributing to organizations and funds …
May 6th, 2007 at 1:08 pm
[...] web-hosting company, Dreamhost, has gone carbon-neutral. Which means that TasteTO.com has gone green without us even realising it. [...]
May 6th, 2007 at 9:31 pm
[...] More information is available at their blog post on the matter. [...]
May 7th, 2007 at 3:38 am
[...] DreamHost Blog » We’re green. “Effective today, DreamHost is now a carbon-neutral company.” Nice move and a nice discussion of how they’re doing it. (tags: environment green hosting power sustainability dreamhost carbonneutral emissions) [...]
May 7th, 2007 at 6:11 am
OK….you are really trying, and it should make you feel better.
Forgot to mentions that
“Only 100% recycled electrons are used on this website”
Problem is that these little things still have to get past the atoms, and collions result in transfer of energy. At least your servers are making these little blighters move slower, so the rate of heat transfer is reduced…
May 7th, 2007 at 7:17 am
[...] ISP, Dreamhost, based in Los Angeles, claims [...]
May 7th, 2007 at 2:25 pm
[...] popular web hosting company, Dreamhost, announced recently that they’ve "gone green" by becoming carbon-neutral. Although the bulk of the [...]
May 7th, 2007 at 6:54 pm
[...] while and am pretty happy with them and wasn’t willing to give up their service. Recently, Dreamhost announced they are now a green hosting company. This means that all three of my sites - this blog, my deaf tech blog, and my photography site - [...]
May 8th, 2007 at 7:55 am
[...] [Dreamhost blog on this] Date: May 8th, 2007 · Comments RSS · Tags: environment · green · energy · energey [...]
May 9th, 2007 at 6:45 am
while and am pretty happy with them and wasn’t willing to give up their service. Recently, Dreamhost announced they are now a green hosting company. This means that all three of my sites - this blog, my deaf tech blog, and my photography site
May 9th, 2007 at 4:45 pm
Wow! I am so surprised at the negativity! I think that other companies should learn from you! Besides, we will never truly know for a fact about global warming, but everyone seems to forget this is a health issue! Why do you think asthma and cancer rates are going through the roof? I want my 2 year to breath cleaner air! I want to feel good when I go on walks with her. I want my allergies to go away!
I think it is time that you get out of your huge suv that you drove to the store five minutes away and make a difference. At least dreamhost is trying!
May 10th, 2007 at 9:45 am
Carbon neutral is such a joke, as written up by the WS journal and NY Times. It basically means you’re paying to pollute. If you don’t see the insanity in this, then stop and think. Example: you buy $10 for 10 pounds of carbon emitted. That $10 credit is bought by someone else who is emitting 10 pounds (they buy $10 worth of credits). But between the two companies, you still have emitted 20 pounds and shelled out $20. And who keeps the money? It’s another big fat swindle perpetrated by the multi-Billion dollar green industry selling credits so people can pollute in good conscience.
May 10th, 2007 at 1:42 pm
> Example: you buy $10 for 10 pounds of carbon emitted.
> That $10 credit is bought by someone else who is emitting
> 10 pounds (they buy $10 worth of credits).
I’m not sure where you’re getting that. Have you read how offsets work? Please read “Offsetting as a Concept” and “The Importance of Additionality”, here:
http://www.thegreenoffice.com/carbon/offsetting_101.php
The whole point is that the credit-selling company makes verified changes to lessen their pollution on the credit-purchaser’s behalf that they would not otherwise have done.
I don’t doubt that there are unscrupulous elements to the carbon offset industry (something we looked into), but I don’t believe that’s reason to discount the entire concept itself.
> It basically means you’re paying to pollute.
I suppose one could see it that way, but the end result of our action is that due to our payment X amount of carbon emissions are removed from the atmosphere, where X equals the amount we contribute to the atmosphere ourselves.
If you do the math, this means that were our company not to even exist the exact same amount of carbon is being emitted. We’re effectively neutralizing (or “offsetting”) the impact of our emissions.
This isn’t meant to be “pennence” or some sort of absolution of guilt. It’s meant to have a concrete impact on the overall amount of carbon emitted into the atmosphere.
Of course, we’d love it if we could just skip the middle man entirely and run our servers on some sort of renewable resource (like, say, solar, wind or inbound spam) - but that’s just not feasible for our company right now. Really huge guys like Google can build data centers with huge solar arrays or windmills or whatever, but we can’t (yet!).
Until then, though, we really do believe that we are making a marked difference by our actions, and we will certainly consider even better options as they open up.
- Jeff @ DreamHost
May 10th, 2007 at 11:07 pm
I truely appreciate Dreamhost in going Green. Our clients are going to love it, thanks again.
Anyone who has any complaints, feel free to change hosting providers (like we could stop you) and keep your paranoid blabberings to yourselves :)
Thanks Jeff + team, big thumbs up for this one!
May 11th, 2007 at 4:40 pm
Way to go. Next time I need a web host located in the US, I’ll go with you guys.
May 14th, 2007 at 2:42 pm
It’s good that Dreamhost is at least ATTEMPTING to make an effort to help the enviroment. I am a high school student, I’m sure a lot of the cynics are older than me. Why should they care about the enviroment? It won’t start to get bad until after they die off anyways. My site will show support for the green movement even with all the annoying conspiracy theories floating around. Trust me, I am a dissident myself but I don’t think Global Warning is a government conspiracy, it hasn’t really helped them yet.
May 15th, 2007 at 11:09 am
Way to go, Dreamhost! Finding an environmentally responsible webhost was actually a consideration that led my organization to originally host with another provider. Now we are migrating to Dreamhost because of space, bandwidth and reliability issues with the other host.
By the way, what are you doing about your electronic waste?
Another aside: Telecommuting is even better than having an office on two sides of the city. I do IT work and have telecommuted for 3 years. Naturally, I’m not the IT person that maintains the server hardware in the office (I design databases and write software). I love it, and it allows me to literally drive less than 25 miles a week!
-Sam
May 15th, 2007 at 11:14 pm
Way to go DreamHost! I’m in full support. And am now considering migrating all of my web hosting to you. All of my clients will love it.
(Now you just need to take the full step and somehow get on alternativer energy).
~ Michael
http://www.michaelgaio.com
http://www.jalaka.com
May 15th, 2007 at 11:15 pm
Way to go DreamHost! I’m in full support. And am now considering migrating all of my web hosting to you. All of my clients will love it.
(Now you just need to take the full step and somehow get on alternativer energy).
~ Michael
May 16th, 2007 at 10:29 am
Well done! I am amazingly impressed that dreamhost decided to do this. It’s just another reason why I’m extremely happy to have my site hosted here.
May 16th, 2007 at 11:27 am
Just a belated comment to say thank you for doing this. I don’t necessarily think that emission credits are a perfect solution, but as you point out they’re a lot better than doing nothing.
I have to say, I’m astonished at the amount of crap you’re having to put up with over this decision, though. I didn’t take the time to comment when I first saw this post, because I thought anything I could post would just get lost in a sea of thank-yous. Had I realized that the last remaining neanderthals of the world were all going to converge on your blog with all their “OMG GLOBAL WARMING IS A HIPPIE CONSPIRACY!!1!” nonsense, I’d have posted something sooner.
On the bright side, at least that sort of silliness seems to be largely restricted to the US these days, like creationism and other charming American quirks. The rest of the world, from what I can see, is pretty well aware of the scientific consensus on the subject.
I wonder how many of the negative posters even host with you? I notice most of them opted to post anonymously. I’m guessing someone posted a link to this entry on some kind of anti-environmental forum so that they could all pile in and spam you en masse.
May 22nd, 2007 at 6:39 am
brilliant idea, from both a sustainable and marketing standpoint ;)
May 23rd, 2007 at 12:49 am
Take gasoline - at about 20 pounds CO2 per gallon
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/factors.html
That’s ~100 gallons per ton CO2. When it costs about $300+ to purchase and emit that ton, how can it possibly cost only $5 to $30 to “offset” that ton?! Oh, hey, I’m going to drive 3000 miles for vacation next week, unless somebody pays me $30 not to; cool, instant offset! That’s how. Guess what - no real reduction.
June 18th, 2007 at 11:40 am
[...] couple of months ago, one of the more famous hosting companies around, Dreamhost announced that they are carbon neutral. All their 400,000 hosted domains are now green. For the [...]
July 4th, 2007 at 7:32 pm
i find your faith … disturbing…
Please excuse the mutiliation of the quote - it makes sense later on. As my long-time readers are probably aware, this weblog is being hosted on Dreamhost machines. Despite an inordinate amount of negative reviews, complaints about downtime, and gripes…
July 6th, 2007 at 11:53 pm
[...] Leave a comment below if you’ve other resources to make a website Green, Sustainable, or Eco-Friendly. By the way, this website is hosted by DreamHost, which has recently gone green. [...]
July 26th, 2007 at 11:36 pm
[...] DreamHost Blog » We’re green. … is making my bill higher than it would otherwise be, and giving … Yet another reason I love you guys. Keep up the great work - you … I can’t wait to fire up the Hummer and suck a tailpipe! http://blog.dreamhost.com/2007/04/20/were-green/ [...]
June 7th, 2008 at 1:02 am
a good read.
June 16th, 2008 at 9:39 am
[...] can read more about how carbon neutral hosting works at Dreamhost via their going green blog post and green hosting [...]