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E-book readers are full of electronics. These require large expensive factories, which use a lot of resources. Then the devices are shipped, consuming resources - such hi-tech manufacture is expensive, therefore is done somewhere cheap, meaning international shipping. Books are cheap to print.
Then you need a computer with Internet access to get your ebooks - more hi-tech, more distant manufacturing and transport. It downloads books from big websites, meaning big datacentres, meaning lots and lots of manufacturing and power.
Then the devices need regular charging - so more power, more fuels being burned, more power distribution.
Books tend to last. They're cheap, need no power, have no DRM (photocopy 'em or scan 'em if you want - it's laborious but perfectly doable), can be reused many times by many people, can be lent and borrowed (think libraries), etc.
( Read more... )
Then you need a computer with Internet access to get your ebooks - more hi-tech, more distant manufacturing and transport. It downloads books from big websites, meaning big datacentres, meaning lots and lots of manufacturing and power.
Then the devices need regular charging - so more power, more fuels being burned, more power distribution.
Books tend to last. They're cheap, need no power, have no DRM (photocopy 'em or scan 'em if you want - it's laborious but perfectly doable), can be reused many times by many people, can be lent and borrowed (think libraries), etc.
( Read more... )
