Global Computing's Carbon Footprint Is Bigger Than Previously Estimated (upi.com) 41
An anonymous reader quotes a report from UPI: According to a new study, published Friday in the journal Patterns, information and communications technology, or ICT for short, is responsible for a greater share of greenhouse gas emissions than previously estimated.
When researchers at Lancaster University analyzed earlier attempts to calculate ICT's carbon footprint, they determined scientists had failed to account for the entire life-cycle and supply chain of ICT products and infrastructure.
This would include, for example, the emissions produced by makers of ICT components, or the emissions linked with the disposal of ICT products.
Scientists have previously pegged ICT's share of greenhouse gas emissions at between 1.8% and 2.8%. But the latest findings suggest global computing is more likely responsible for between 2.1% and 3.9% of greenhouse gas emissions.
If the latest estimates are accurate, ICT would have a larger carbon footprint than the aviation industry, which is responsible for 2 percent of greenhouse gas emissions.
When researchers at Lancaster University analyzed earlier attempts to calculate ICT's carbon footprint, they determined scientists had failed to account for the entire life-cycle and supply chain of ICT products and infrastructure.
This would include, for example, the emissions produced by makers of ICT components, or the emissions linked with the disposal of ICT products.
Scientists have previously pegged ICT's share of greenhouse gas emissions at between 1.8% and 2.8%. But the latest findings suggest global computing is more likely responsible for between 2.1% and 3.9% of greenhouse gas emissions.
If the latest estimates are accurate, ICT would have a larger carbon footprint than the aviation industry, which is responsible for 2 percent of greenhouse gas emissions.
Wanna reduce carbon footprint of computing? (Score:4, Insightful)
- Collapse the gigantic pile of crap that makes up today's web infrastructure. The amount of CPU cycles required to do even the most trivial task online today is completely insane.
- Stop the SaS and cloud madness
- Make unabashed online surveillance and associated data processing unlawful for pure monetization purposes (i.e. okay for research and product development like self-driving car, not okay to serve targeted ads or manipulate elections)
- Severely curtail the advertisement industry by taxing advertisers on a wasted resources basis
- Teach coding efficiency in university, and make efficient coding skills a marketable asset on the job marketplace
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- Stop the SaS and cloud madness
Why would that reduce emissions? Datacenters tend to be located where energy is cheap hydro and wind. That is going to emit less carbon than running the same software locally.
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Because you think running a spreadsheet or a word processor locally on local files isn't more efficient than transfering tons of Javascript to a browser, getting the browser to run that in its virtual machine, the other half running on a - admittedly efficient - remote server, and getting data and display updates go back and forth across the intarweb at each user click or keystroke through a 15 layers of crappily written API in XML format or whatever, encrypting the shit both ways and ultimately ferrying ev
Re: Wanna reduce carbon footprint of computing? (Score:2)
SaaS is worse (Score:2)
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Most SaaS uses inefficient, bloated client-side code to operate anyway, doubling the impact compared to well-written locally-executed software.
Oh that's just amusing. Well-written when it's your agenda being pushed. Otherwise everyone's complaining how bloated and inefficient local code is compared to "back in my day" code.
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Well, it's sort of true. Code written for desktop use today does tend to be less efficient than code written for desktops ten years ago, but there's a reason for that: Skilled developer time is expensive, and writing efficient code takes a lot more time than just writing something that works.
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3. Invite illegal aliens to hang out in superspreader camps, then let them into the communities with unvaxxed populations.
If Texans don't want to vaccinate, it's just natural selection.
God naturally just doesn't like them.
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Stop cryptocurrency mining?
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Yeah, that too. But that kinda goes without saying. I assumed it was a wastage problem in a class of its own so I didn't mention it.
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Stop the SaS and cloud madness
It's not madness, it's a good idea poorly implemented. Having centralised datacentres is much more efficient than every company having a local room full of servers.
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For some things, it makes sense. For something like an email reader, the JavaScript associated with (say) Gmail is many times larger than most of the email being read with it. Most things involving human-created content would also be better processed locally. And if centralized apps include telemetry or similar features, they become less efficient. Even in the best case, shipping data across a continent uses a load of energy that could be used for local processing instead.
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- Teach coding efficiency in university, and make efficient coding skills a marketable asset on the job marketplace
Having taken a university course on programming in the last few years I can assure you that universities are laying it on thick that we need efficient code. I'll give my experience as an example.
As most college students will discover the first week of classes, especially the first day, is a lot of "fluff" and busy work. The instructors have to clue everyone in on this and that, including the system to submit assignments electronically. As there will almost always be an issue here, and there's not much to
What percentage is social media? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Well, to be fair, fuel wastage due to recreational use of motor vehicles also outweighs purely utilitarian use. Same as with any other plentiful commodity. It's nothing new.
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I believe the vast majority is video streaming but idk.
You could reduce a bunch (Score:2)
If you used blockers and refused tracking "features"
I mean it's 2021 already. Screw the "cloud"
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If you used blockers and refused tracking "features"
I mean it's 2021 already. Screw the "cloud"
It's 2021, why is my web browser even built to allow all this shit being loaded into my computer without my permission?
I should not have to add on "ad-blockers" so my computer doesn't lock up from having to load so many animated advertisements. I thought I needed a more powerful computer to do what I do on the web, and by chance I ended up getting a computer with 8-cores and 36 GB of RAM for my use. That seemed to only make things worse. I still had the computer get the CPU pegged, the RAM filled, and br
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If you used blockers and refused tracking "features"
I mean it's 2021 already. Screw the "cloud"
It's 2021, why is my web browser even built to allow all this shit being loaded into my computer without my permission?
I should not have to add on "ad-blockers" so my computer doesn't lock up from having to load so many animated advertisements. I thought I needed a more powerful computer to do what I do on the web, and by chance I ended up getting a computer with 8-cores and 36 GB of RAM for my use. That seemed to only make things worse. I still had the computer get the CPU pegged, the RAM filled, and brought to uselessness by my web browsing. I tend to have a dozens of tabs open in multiple windows but that's no excuse for the computer to become unresponsive. I learned where some settings were to reduce some of the automated this and that which drove up CPU use. If the computer becomes unresponsive then I learned to take a break and wait for the browser to crash.
It doesn't seem to matter which OS or browser I use, there will be web pages that just drive the CPU crazy and there's not much I can do to stop it once it starts. It's not near as bad as it once was but I should not have web browsers leave me unable to close a suspect tab because it is taking up so much CPU time. The worst offenders appear to be news sites, they really want you to watch a video of someone reading the article to you than just let you read the article yourself. Rarely does the video add value, but they really want you to watch.
The website developers have some of the blame here, they could keep the amount of data to get the necessary information across to a minimum. The biggest problem, in my opinion, is in the web browser. There should be no feasible way for any code on a web page to leave my computer unresponsive. I'm kind of glad the web browsers are the way they are, at least they will eventually crash and give me my computer back.
Maybe it's you, maybe it's Maybelline.
Ublock Origin, Privacy Badger and so on...
I would read TFA ... (Score:2)
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None because miracle of miracles computers by their nature can run any OS written for them.
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How much IT kit will end up in landfill
That's not the point. How much new kit will have to be produced (resources consumed, etc.)?
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Some new surveillance program, I think.
Shroedinger's Climate (Score:3)
If there were no computers powerful enough to run climate models, there would be nothing to worry about. A bit tongue in cheek, but computing is the product of a "high energy society" that began with the industrial revolution.
I'm not suggesting we go back to horse and buggy. I think we should have always realized, even if we're not changing climate, that fossil fuels were a one-shot deal. We knew there were limited amounts of these fuels. We should have always had a "pump priming" mentality towards them. Use fossil fuels to prime the technology pump so that we can move forward sustainably. We're sort of half-assing that.
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Anyway this study shows carbon footprint of computing negligible and not the low hanging fruit of reducing mankind's emissions below the Earth's sinking ability.
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> I'm not suggesting we go back to horse and buggy. I think we should have always realized, even if we're not changing climate, that fossil fuels were a one-shot deal.
This got me smirking... Fossil fuels have gone on for about 6 generations now, to quote The Truman Show : "We accept the reality of the world with which we're presented"
6 generations have been presented a world where fossil fuels are abundant, and apparently infinite. Driving a car is normal for most "westerners", so are plastics, TVs, airp
Carbon footprint: noun (Score:2, Insightful)
A magical incantation that is believed by many to enable the speaker to lay claim to the operation, ownership, and/or a share of the revenues generated by whatever it is he or she is talking about.
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Indeed, the best way to reduce your carbon footprint is to kill yourself. I don't see them doing it.
Turn it off, then (Score:2)
You're welcome to turn it off and see what happens. Go on.
Where does the supply chain end? (Score:2)
The aviation numbers are worse.... (Score:1)