Tu BiShvat

My Friday Thought: With Tu BiShvat this week I am thinking about the importance of technology within our eco-system

Tu BiShvat

I am not an expert in this celebration, however, from what I understand it is known as the Jewish New Year. A celebration of the importance of the role trees play in our ecosystem.

How does this have anything to do with tech?

Solar panels, heat pumps and electric cars are technological changes driving towards supporting our environment lasting for many years to come. As with everything though, it is important to not use focus on the big changes, but what we are doing to support our eco-system. Tu BiShvat is about connecting and ecological awareness and celebrating the amazing role trees play in this. All tech has a impact on our environment.

We can help though in many ways within our day to day working life. Not all programming languages are equal - some have larger progressing requirements and as such higher energy consumption. Considering do you need to use an interpreted language or is their a more energy efficient one that will work the same, could help.

Cloud providers have make instances so much easier to access, but are we selecting the right size and efficiency for our needs? Yes this helps costs too, but ensuring we are updating the more modern efficient versions can also help.

How many environments do you really need? Yes testing and confidence is important, but sometime the small financial cost are accepted, without consideration to the wider ecological costs of our decisions.

So at a time when our Jewish brethren are Tu BiShvat, we could reflect on the important role we play in our ec0-system. The decisions we support and how that can affect the world in which we live.