Environmental science and pollution research international
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Environ Sci Pollut Res Int · Apr 2021
EditorialCOVID-19 pandemic: the possible influence of the long-term ignorance about climate change.
In addressing the current COVID-19 pandemic and evaluating the measures taken by global leaders so far, it is crucial to trace back the circumstances influencing the emergence of the crisis that the world is presently facing. Could it be that the failure to act in a timely manner dates way back to when first concerns about climate change and its inevitable threat to human health came up? Multiple lines of evidence suggest that the large-scale and rapid environmental changes in the last few decades may be implicated in the emergence of COVID-19 pandemic by increasing the potential risk of the occurrence and the spread of zoonotic diseases, worsening food security, and weakening the human immune system. As we are facing progressive climatic change, a failure to act accordingly could inevitably lead to further, more frequent confrontations with newly emerging diseases.
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Environ Sci Pollut Res Int · Apr 2021
Evaluating the sustainability of big data centers using the analytic network process and fuzzy TOPSIS.
The big data revolution has created data center sustainability problems, whose solutions require the consideration of environmental factors. The purpose of this study is to establish a big data center sustainability evaluation index and provide guidance for sustainable data center construction. This research formulated a big data center sustainability evaluation model that integrates multiple-criteria decision-making methods based on the analytic network process and fuzzy technique for order preference by similarity to an ideal solution (TOPSIS). ⋯ Big data is new oil, but it is not clean oil. It is both a vital driver of economic growth and a source of environmental damage. We need to ensure that big data centers are run in a sustainable way.