Who’s Afraid of a Green Library?

(www.siliconrepublic.com)

Yesterday, for those of you who haven’t heard, Amazon unleashed its Kindle 2.0 on the literary world – the green answer to the printed book. It is a well known fact that chunks of the Amazon and the like have been wiped out so as to appease the wannabe wizards and teen vamps who have put the book industry back in business. Though series sales have skyrocketed, paving the way for a new breed of movie adaptations (Twilight anyone?), what price have we paid for the inimitable feel of crisp paper between our fingertips?

The Green Press Initiative conducted a study in 2006 to find out. Thanks to the 4.15 billion books printed that year, the industry left behind a carbon footprint size of 12.4. That’s 12.4 tons of metric waste. Not such an insignificant double digit anymore, huh? And that doesn’t include the daily Times you tend to toss, or those 52 issues of Entertainment Weekly you’ve been saving up from last year.

Seemingly, Amazon has found the alternative. Connected to the Sprint network, the new Kindle can download any of its 230,000 books in less than a minute. It has a longer battery life and a new, streamlined look, which is said to weigh less than the average paperback. With the newly expanded hard drive, you can toss 1,500 books into your handbag or briefcase, offering you more options for your morning commute.