Carbon emissions from computing looks set to overtake aviation, a UK environmental charity claimed today.

According to Global Action Plan, IT now accounts for 10 per cent of energy consumption in the UK.

Speaking at the House of Commons this afternoon, Trewin Restorick, the author of "An Inefficient Truth" report, said IT departments have been "incredibly slow to get off the mark" when it comes to reducing their carbon footprints.

He added that big name vendors had not been helping by using the environment as "a new marketing tool".

"I've seen a lot of green froth and hype from a whole bunch of vendors which are pretty hard to substantiate," said Restorick.

IT departments poised to fly past airlines on CO₂ emissions – Kelly Fiveash – 3 Dec 2007 19:55

The annual McAfee Virtual Criminology Report was released yesterday warning of a rise in international cyber spying, labelling it the single biggest threat to digital security.

McAfee estimates 120 countries are now using the Internet for Web espionage operations.

Cyber-attacks on private and government Web sites in Estonia in April and May this year were "just the tip of the iceberg", the report warned.

Estonia said thousands of sites were affected in attacks aimed at crippling infrastructure in a country heavily dependent on the Internet.

As well as communications, everything from stock orders, inventory checks, banking and salary payments are all made electronically the world over.

Ian Grayson suggests in his post "Email – what if the flow just stopped?", that we should not be relying souly upon digital records but also keep some back up methods of the traditional and papery kind, in the event that anything drastic should happen. At least business will be able to continue in some manner rather than completely grind to a halt.