Katie Singer writes about technology and nature. “An Electronic Silent Spring” is her most recent book. In 2018, she spoke about the Internet’s footprint at the United Nations. She dreams that every smartphone user knows the supply chain of one substance (of 1000+) in every smartphone.

Her websites include www.DearGreta.com, www.ourweb.tech and www.electronicsilentspring.com.

13 OCTOBER 2020, KATIE SINGER

“Behind Our Screens: An Invitation to Learn a Smartphone’s True Costs” (Letter #3 to Greta) has just been posted at Wall St. International Magazine: https://wsimag.com/science-and-technology/63710-behind-our-screens

Snippet:

Dear Greta,

In 2018, when I met Soumya Dutta, co-founder of India Climate Justice, he spelled out my privileges as a U.S. American. (I think you know what he shared, but I did not.) “In the twentieth century,” Mr. Dutta explained, “the human population increased four-fold, from 1.6 to 6.1 billion people. During the same time, global energy consumption increased between twelve and sixteen-fold¹. Whenever one unit of energy is produced and consumed, water, land and other bio-resources are also consumed; and hazardous waste is generated. In other words, because of cars, electricity, air conditioning and televisions, the average person now uses over four times the amount of natural resources that our grandparents consumed. Meanwhile, in 2020, six billion more of us are alive.”

I added two items to Soumya Dutta’s list: because of cars, electricity, air conditioning, the Internet and smartphones, the average person now uses over four times the amount of natural resources that our grandparents consumed.

“Actually,” Soumya Dutta continued, “referring here to ‘average’ people is not correct. According to the World Bank, the average Indian consumes about 630 kilograms of oil equivalent (kgoe) per year. The average Bangladeshi consumes less than 300 kgoe. The average U.S. American annually consumes over 6000 kgoe. “To provide every global citizen with a decent opportunity for a healthy life (starting with clean water and toilets), poor countries with the lowest emissions might need to increase their per capita energy consumption. To reduce human-imposed burdens on natural ecosystems sufficiently, people who consume excessively will need to reduce their energy and water consumption by at least 70%² and eliminate their greenhouse gas emissions completely.” ³

Soumya Dutta got me wondering how I could reduce my consumption by 70% and eliminate my greenhouse gas emissions.

Read more at: https://wsimag.com/science-and-technology/63710-behind-our-screens

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By Michael Le Page

Our tech addiction is cooking the planet. The manufacture and use of smartphones, computers and TVs will produce 4 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 and 8 per cent by 2025.

That is the conclusion of a report on the sustainability of the digital technology sector put together by 12 experts for a Paris-based think tank called The Shift Project, which says that energy use in this sector is increasing by 9 per cent every year.

The post ‘Digital sobriety’ can halt tech-fuelled global warming, says report appeared first on EMFSA.

Digital sobriety’ can halt tech-fuelled global warming, says report

5 March 2019

By Michael Le Page

Our tech addiction is cooking the planet. The manufacture and use of smartphones, computers and TVs will produce 4 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 and 8 per cent by 2025.

That is the conclusion of a report on the sustainability of the digital technology sector put together by 12 experts for a Paris-based think tank called The Shift Project, which says that energy use in this sector is increasing by 9 per cent every year.

Digital sobriety

The Shift Project wants companies and governments to adopt “digital sobriety” as a principle. That means buying less-powerful machines, replacing them less frequently and not using energy-intensive approaches where possible.

Although there is some evidence that consumers are replacing smartphones less often, the general trend is to do more with ever-more-powerful machines. Artificial intelligence in particular is extremely energy-intensive.

The report’s definition of digital technology includes the data centres that store and supply internet content, along with the equipment needed to access it, from phones to Wi-Fi routers. It doesn’t include digital equipment in cars and factories. As there are no official global measures of digital energy use, the team instead had to make estimates on the basis of available data, such as statistics on the sales of TVs and other hardware.

The report updates a 2015 study by Anders Andrae of Huawei Technologies. That study has been criticised for greatly overestimating the growth in energy consumption. The new work, however, suggests that digital energy use is growing much faster than previously predicted. “The report is sound,” says Andrae. “They have thought a lot about the problem at hand.”

Read more: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2195771-digital-sobriety-can-halt-tech-fuelled-global-warming-says-report/#ixzz60QocZOiv

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