Physical Vs Virtual Waste

Many people lately like to make the argument about the negative affects behind electronics.  People love to point out how data centers are huge energy demons, and that power comes from dirty coal.  Do you see whats wrong with that statement? 
First of why are we still generating our power from coal, when have plenty of viable renewable alternatives?  Electronics such as your cellphone, computer, or camera do not care where they get their power from be it coal, wind or solar.  Don't get me wrong, data centers do use an immense amount of power, and the majority of power plants on this planet are coal based, however this is way that it is set up now.  Your electronics have the great potential to have a negligible impact, your energy source is not set in stone.  Your electronics will be manufactured from renewable energies and will use renewable energies, we will get there, the speed at which we arrive depends on how vocal you can be to sway your local politicians. 

The best way to green our world is make your electronics more efficient, so if we were to invest more money in the abysmal research for better batteries, we could can make our electronic impact even smaller.

The best thing about electronics is that you do not have to cut down trees that provide your oxygen and clean your air to write something down.  We can carry whole libraries in a 6" by 8" window, you can call up any information on the spot which is handy in ensuring that we get the work done properly.  Electronics allow us to eliminate the physical waste from our world, we do not have to rape our world of its precious resources.  The less waste we have the less likely it is that it won't get recycled, as a result your city is spending less on waste management and more on LRT or social needs.   With your government spending less on physical waste management, you spend less on taxes.

Electronics are not perfect right now, they should be built to be more repairable.  Your laptop should be built for easy disassembling, which allows you to switch out broken parts quickly and electronic waste management companies can easily extract and recycle all of the valuable materials.