The exhibition seen from the museum's balcony.  

Post & Tele Museum has opened an exhibition about communication and climate: How many cows does an e-mail pollute, mum? The exhibition focuses on some of the problems that we consumers are facing when trying to communicate in a green way. The examples are many and fetched from e.g. historical environmental scandals in the name of communication and the latest investigations of what it actually means to the climate when we send an e-mail or receive one of our many daily text messages.

The meeting between environment, climate, and communication has often been problematic. In the pursuit of higher speed, better quality, and more efficiency the amount of resources needs are often forgotten. When the telephone network was being upgraded from operators and winding handles to dial and electricity via the point, thousands of kilo-metres of cable and thousands of telephones were replaced. Today copper is definitely in short supply, and in our pockets we are carrying small ticking environmental bombs in the shape of mobile phones. They contain as well lead and gold as the seventh most dangerous substance in the world, cadmium. So the outlook seems somewhat black for us. 

Illustration of e-waste from the exhibition.
© Greenpeace. 

But wait a sec! You don't have to throw your mobile phone into the dustbin (No, please don't ever do that!) or discontinue your internet subscription. Digital communication also offers a unique chance to reduce some of the consumption which really creates a deficit on the climate account. Transport by car or aeroplane may be spared due to fast e-mail exchanges, video conferences, and internet trade, and efficient delivery of post is to shopping what the bus is to passenger traffic. All this is included when the exhibition attempts to gather the knowledge you need to establish whether Greentech is actually green. 

Five Green Tips

1. Save the Journey
Remember that e-mail, telephone meetings, or video conferences can be used instead of travelling to the other end of the country. 

2. Turn off the Electricity
10-15 % of your electricity consumption goes to standby consumption. If we all turned off the electricity for three weeks a year (e.g. when we are on holiday), we would save 130 million kWh. This is equal to no less than 65,000 tons of CO₂.

3. Send E-mails in "plain text"
I.e. without formatting like bold style, coloured letters, and pictures. In that way they take up less space when filed, sent or read.  

 4. Delete Old E-mails  
Every little helps; and somewhere in the world your e-mails are filed in a computer which is buzzing all the 24 hours. If more people deleted their old e-mails, a machine might be spared somewhere.   

 5. Keep your Mobile Phone  
Mobile talk does not pollute very much, but the production of mobile phones does. So postpone re-placement of your old phone for a year. This, of course, also goes for your computer equipment. And remember to check production and power consumption before the replacement - in that way you will save both on your electricity bill and the climate account.