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Today we want to talk about a slightly different topic than usual, it doesn't concern privacy but the world we live in. We will talk about Internet CO2 emissions because we believe that, like all problems not immediately visible, is an underestimated problem by too many people. As someone argued during this quarantine period, the climate crisis it is nothing more than a pandemic in slow motion. Let's hope we don't all notice when it's too late. For example the cloud, which may seem like something somewhat of immaterial And green regardless, it's just the latest addition on the list of culprits of global warming.
In this regard we also recommend the article by Alessio Giacometti on The Paperback: The digital world is not sustainable.
We will try, as always, to Don't use technicalities but to use practical examples and, as always, with lots of interesting links. Summarized in very few words: out of guilt of the Internet, over a billion tons of CO2 are emitted every year 1 which are, so to speak, so many. It has been estimated that the entire IT industry reached the point of consuming, in 2017, 10% of the world's electricity 2.
Second Nature 3 the CO2 emissions of all ICT (which therefore also includes personal digital devices, mobile telephone networks and televisions) is equal to the emissions emitted by the fuel of the entire aeronautical industry.
For this reason we too have moved to a Hosting green at 100% called Infomaniak.
There are several, some examples:
- Infomaniak 🇨🇭 100% green And Swiss, they don't even use air conditioning to cool their systems.
- OrangeWebsite 🇮🇸 100% green energy and servers Icelanders.
- GreenGeeks 🇺🇸 300% 4 of green energy, with American servers and Dutch.
CO emissions2 of the Internet, practical examples
Let's start from emissions calculator for website. On the site websitecarbon.com in fact you can test all the possible websites to understand, according to their analysis 5, how many CO2 emissions are produced to view that website. We are quite satisfied with the our result 😊. In fact, our site is designed precisely to be light, simple And without distractions. Therefore also with a low environmental impact. In the next practical example we will understand why a site light, simple And without advertising like ours it helps produce less energy and unnecessary pollution.
CO emissions2 of the Internet with and without advertising
Always in the same style and on the same theme you can try the site webtest.app. In fact, this site will allow you to test any website with and without ads. Also in this case, having no advertising, the our page It occupies little and requires little energy to be generated. And there is no difference between having or not having uBlock installed. In fact, this site allows you to understand how much energy advertisements generate. To better understand what we are talking about: try any site such as come ilpost.it. The energy used to view the site without advertising is half of the normal one. A great environmental impact!
Unfortunately the site webtest.app It doesn't seem to exist anymore, we're waiting to see if it has been moved somewhere else or not!
Is it easy to stop climate change? Then you try it!
Let's add one last site created by Climate Interactive and from MIT Sloan's Sustainability Initiative: climateinteractive.org. This last site is a simulator for our future. Based on how you decide to tax or instead hold up the various sectors you can see how and how much it is possible to stop the drastic climate change in progress. Can you achieve a decent temperature rise without destroying the world economy?
Let's add one last thing: personal efforts are important to send signals and to try to change the morbid relationship that institutions have with polluting companies. Unfortunately, however, during the recent worldwide lockdown emissions appear to have only dropped by 5.5% 6 7. You understood correctly: with many planes on the ground, zero tourism and with billions of people locked at home there CO2 has certainly decreased but not as we might have hoped. Other studies show that some pollutants have dropped but not all and not as many as would be expected with all the people stationary 8.
We therefore think it is necessary to channel anger in the right direction, asking for real change from the governments and companies that pollute our planet on a daily basis. Let's all try to do our little part where and as much as possible.
Climate impact by area
Going to the site electricityMapInstead, we can see a classification by carbon intensity of electricity consumed for all states that release data.
If you are interested in the topic we invite you to follow the initiatives of Fridays For Future Italy and of Extinction Rebellion Italy. In this regard it should be noted that Fridays For Future Italy relies on the Italian provider 100% green bmservice.it, you can read more information on their page Digital Sustainability.
Another interesting article concerns streaming music. Did you know that in 2016 it was analyzed that streaming and downloading music generated something like 194 million kilograms of greenhouse gas emissions? 9 And no one here is talking about going back or the famous decreasing happiness. It would just be very different if we all made an effort and demanded that it be used Alone renewable energy. Even when we buy our cell phone (Fairphone does it tell you anything?).
Finally, we leave you with this worrying infographic of the WWF.
We hope that the topic was of interest to you even if, as anticipated, differently than usual we didn't talk about privacy but about another topic that is still close to our hearts. If you have any comments you can write to us in our subreddit!
- What is the carbon footprint of the internet?[↩]
- Emerging Trends in Electricity Consumption for Consumer ICT[↩]
- How to stop data centers from gobbling up the world's electricity[↩]
- GreenGeeks and the Bonneville Environmental Foundation[↩]
- How does it work?[↩]
- The world is on lockdown. So where are all the carbon emissions coming from?[↩]
- Despite the lockdowns, there are new records of CO2 emissions[↩]
- https://www.open.online/2021/03/10/covid-19-lockdown-inquinamento/[↩]
- The Hidden Costs of Streaming Music[↩]
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