A post today at WorldChanging takes on a new campaign by Greenpeace warning about “Cloud Comoputing and its Contribution to Climate Change.” The refutation by the author, who is a Greenpeace supporter, includes some explanations of why computing is environmentally friendly — such as this:

In fact, in some cases, that Google search can replace that trip to work or the mall. Technology can in fact greatly increase the efficiency of urban living, particularly car-free living in walkable neighborhoods as I wrote yesterday. Indeed, the same study Greenpeace is relying on finds that tech has as much capacity to cure as harm: “The Smart 2020 study also made a compelling case for ICT’s significant potential to deliver climate and energy solutions, estimating that ICT technologies could cut 7.8 GtCO2 of global greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, a 15% reduction over business-as-usual projections.”