As the
author of a soon to be published e-book, I was interested to see this letter in
today’s
Observer. It would appear that the writer’s name meant nothing to the
letters editor, and that the irony inherent in the form in which it was sent was
also missed.
E-books are not green
Prediction:
electronic book readers (News, last week) will seem like a really good idea at
first, but then e-book spam will appear, along with the inevitable adverts
between chapters, then we will have to spend lots of money on anti-virus
software, and before we know it the readers will need expensive upgrades, and
shortly after that become obsolete.
As
to environmental problems, electronic devices tend to require lots of energy to
produce, are difficult to recycle and are often polluting when they get broken
and thrown away. Compared to this, paper (which in Britain comes mostly from
plantations, not rainforests) does not seem so bad.
It
would be nice to see publishers making more use of recycled paper, or even
experimenting with paper made from other plant fibres, such as hemp or stinging
nettle.
Ned Ludd
via email
Comments