An indirect suggestion: advocate for energy-efficient programming languages and programs. This may seem like a shallow suggestion (and even a faintly ridiculou

An indirect suggestion: advocate for energy-efficient programming languages and programs. This may seem like a shallow suggestion (and even a faintly ridiculous one), but there is some logic to the idea. When PHP 7 was released, Rasmurf Lerdorf, the creator of PHP, talked about the performance gains from version 7. The performance improvements meant fewer servers, smaller memory use and reduced CPU activity - all of which equalled less power or electricity consumed. When you consider the millions of servers in use, that additional language efficiency adds up to a substantial saving in electricity use. You can watch a segment from his presentation where he talks about this here: https://youtu.be/umxGUWYmiSw?t=15m16s https://youtu.be/umxGUWYmiSw?t=15m16s Today, dynamic programming languages are the most popular - and sometimes the least performant and least power efficient. The most common solution, often espoused on these forums, is to throw more energy-guzzling hardware at the problem because hardware is cheap. And cheaper than picking a more performant, more energy-efficient language. Before you dismiss this as completely ridiculous, consider how other industries approach energy efficiency and resource usage. The focus is mostly on reducing consumption of resources - a key selling point for customers. What would you think if a manufacturer said that they were going to make energy-guzzling fridges/washing machines or other appliances without regard to energy-efficiency? But in the computing field, we readily encourage "throwing more energy-guzzling hardware" at the problem until the program runs fast enough because it's a cheap solution. It's hard to think of any other profession that cares so little for energy efficiency than programming. Everything is for the ease and comfort of the programmer and screw anything else - the user, energy use and ultimately the environment.