Your screen time has a carbon footprint
By Marwan Khadem
Have you been suffering from environmental guilt that comes from taking long showers, using plastic straws, and forgetting your reusable grocery bag? Well, buckle up, because now even watching cat videos on social media or YouTube might be contributing to climate change.
The environmental cost of ‘Netflix & chill’ and ‘doomscrolling’
Every time you stream something, such as a movie, a song, or that TikTok of a cat, data has to travel, and that data doesn’t just teleport. It travels through thousands of miles of cables, routed via energy-hungry data centers that consume more electricity than some small nations.
In 2020, online videos made up over 60% of global internet traffic. Watching a one hour video in HD could emit as much CO₂ as popping four bags of popcorn in the microwave. Add subtitles and you are basically speed running deforestation.
When storage isn’t so cool
All your digital stuff, such as emails, photos, cat memes, memes in general, voice messages you regret or don’t regret sending lives in data centers. These are like huge libraries for the internet, but swap the quietness for server noise and fans louder than a Swiftie crowd at any of Taylor’s concerts. Behind every email, meme, image, and video is a data center running 24/7, consuming 1–2% of global electricity. That’s more than what some small countries use. And, no the cloud isn’t magic. It’s just someone else’s hard drive working overtime.
Photo Source: Adrian Swancar
AI, crypto, and the high price of progress
Streaming is like skipping leg day, and crypto is skipping Earth Day. Bitcoin alone uses more electricity than Argentina. Crypto mining farms run 24/7, trying to solve complex math problems just so someone can buy a JPG of a monkey for $200,000! Then, there’s AI. Training large AI models takes a huge amount of computing power. For example, training GPT-3 is estimated to have consumed 1,287 megawatt-hours of electricity, and the process emitted over 550 metric tons of C02. That is roughly the same as 120+ round-trip flights between New York and London. Yes, your robot therapist might actually have a larger carbon footprint than your real one.
Can Big Tech clean up its act?
Some are trying to make notable efforts, such as:
- Google: It has invested €1 billion to expand its data center in Finland which help them to support AI growth while aiming for net-zero emissions by 2030. Only time will tell us whether they can achieve that or not.
- Microsoft: The company has pledged to be carbon negative by 2030. This means that they are planning to remove more C02 than what they emit. Ambitious? Yes. Possible? We’ll see.
- Apple: This tech giant powers all of its stores and offices with renewable energy. However, the impact of your iCloud storage on the environment can vary, depending on where they’re stored. They have said that they are committed to bring their net emissions to zero across their entire carbon footprint by 2030. Let’s hope they remain committed.
- Amazon: Amazon … is trying, I guess. The company has pledged to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2040, which is like saying you’ll clean your room in 15 years. Better than nothing, I suppose?
Photo Source: Taylor Vick
You’re not the problem … but here’s what you can do anyway
Let’s be real: the internet isn’t going anywhere, and you shouldn’t feel bad for using it. However, a few small changes can help to make your digital life a bit greener:
- Lower your streaming quality: Do you really have to stream that sitcom in 4K? It’s mostly just people talking on a couch, not a nature documentary (which would be ironic).
- Unsubscribe from emails you never open and will never open: Those endless “20% off!” promos cost energy to send, store, and ignore. They use energy just by existing. Unsubscribe and move on.
- Declutter your cloud: Delete those 99 identical selfies and that one blurry picture of your lunch from 2018. Use the space as you would in case of physical albums!
- Use eco-friendly search engines: You can try using a greener search engine like Ecosia. They plant trees with ad revenue that they generate. Search a meme, grow a tree. Boom. Win-win.
Yes, tech isn’t free: the planet’s paying the hidden price
We’re all a bit tangled up in the digital web now. However, being more mindful (demure!) of our use of technology doesn’t mean we are giving up on tech. It just means remembering that the internet isn’t just powered by fairy dust. It runs on real machines. And these are huge, hot, and power-hungry machines. The next time someone tells you that your endless scrolling is absolutely harmless, just smile, sip your caffeinated drink, and whisper:
“Well, it might be melting a glacier somewhere.”
Featured Image From NASA
