Adapting to Climate Change and considering the options for Remote/Home Working
While people are looking for ways to mitigate climate change, we must also address looking at ways to adapt to climate change.
I have already listed the effects of climate change as stated by Met Check.
Towards the latter half of 2009 and earlier this year, the UK had quite a lot of snow which affected businesses and schools. I would say that from speaking to a few companies and friends, productivity was affected quite a lot as most could not travel to work. This was either because of the dangers to drive on the road, parents had to look after their kids at home or there was no suitable public transport available.
Green IT does look at remote working (home working) as an option to consider for employees. Perhaps more organisations and schools should look at planning for contingencies when people are unable to get into work or school. Despite it being a few days, the impact to providing services to customers and school children can be quite a lot,and affect the economy too. Some children even have exams in January. I did have a teacher say to me the children should enjoy the weather as it’s not often we get snow, but to have the option to provide lessons/teaching plans for a few hours on the school website would be useful to have too.
The storage of information, once again whether it’s actually on the business site or up in the cloud (cloud computing) does also need to be looked at to cope with possible severe weather conditions.
Just today I spoke to someone about sea level rises, this is something which appears to be affecting the south of the UK. Personally I feel we have had a good summer too, and no doubt ACs and fans were put on to cope with the heat in offices and schools. Not taking credit for something someone else said to me, but the window can be opened instead. Reduced carbon emissions and costs too!
Can businesses and schools afford to not consider the option to provide remote/home working? Reduced travel, reduced carbon emissions and possibly more productivity due to the longer hours worked too.
Whether the Pakistan Floods are due to climate change, cannot really be said. It has been said that third world countries are more likely to suffer more extreme weather conditions though due to climate change.
DATE: 25/08/2010
Tripta Prashar
