One evening in the spring of 2015, I shot a 15-second video from the window of an Amtrak train traveling through the desolate plains of southern New Jersey. There is nothing artistic or interesting about this video; it's just a bunch of white and yellow lights streaking by. I can't remember why I made this video; I'd never even seen it until a few days ago. But for the past nine years, this video has been stored on a server in some data center, quietly and invisibly putting a tiny, tiny strain on the planet.
At the time I made this video, the emissions of information and communications technology were beginning to rival those of the entire aviation industry. According to the International Energy Agency, data centers and data transmission networks currently account for 1.5% of global electricity consumption. In the next few years, as Matteo Wong has written, the advent of ubiquitous artificial intelligence will Atlantic Last year, “pushing web emissions to tipping point”: Earlier this week, Google released a report showing that its emissions have risen substantially as a result of the AI boom, a major step back from the net-zero goal it set just a few years ago.
When it comes to other forms of consumption that are bad for the planet, we all understand that the primary burden of responsibility falls on big corporations – industry, governments, the rich and powerful. But we also recognize that everyone else has a role to play. I turn off the water while I brush my teeth. I carry my groceries in a burlap sack. I always turn off the lights when I leave my apartment, whether I'm going out for five minutes or a week.
Every time you make a new video, send an email, or post a photo of your latest meal, it's like lighting up a little lightbulb that never goes out. This suggests an uncomfortable, very modern question. “Everyone says getting on a plane is really bad,” Tom Jackson, a professor at Loughborough University in the UK who studies the environmental impact of data, told me. “But we also have to think about whether continuing our current digital habits is really a bad thing.”
In other words, should we use less data to save the planet? Given how much of modern life relies on megabytes and teraflops, the answer may be a key aspect of living nobly in the AI era.
As the harms of data usage and storage grow around the world, it was only a matter of time before digital environmentalism became fashionable. In 2020, the BBC reported that “more environmentally conscious consumers are trying to reduce their environmental impact online and on their phones.” An infographic for aspiring digital environmentalists created by carbon credit company Climate Impact Partners suggests that, for example, you shouldn't play videos if you only want audio; you should unsubscribe from newsletters you don't read; and, whenever possible, you should visit websites directly rather than looking for them in search engines.
In reality, it's not easy to know exactly how helpful these interventions will be, or how much pollution our personal data actually causes. “These numbers are very hard to pinpoint,” he said. The Carbon Footprint of Everything“Headlines that say we could reduce thousands of tonnes of emissions each year by, say, sending less unnecessary email or watching less Netflix have proven to be grossly exaggerated. But even our small contributions can add up quickly.
by Mike Berners-Lee
According to my estimates, following a formula found in a recent research paper, storing train videos has generated about 100 grams of CO2 over the past decade. At first glance, this is practically nothing: less than three-hundredths of a percent of the CO2 emitted by a pet cat each year. But data sheds from us like skin cells. Last year, I sent 960 videos to the cloud. Most of these clips are larger than the 15-second video from 2015, because modern phones record much higher quality video. And like many other people, my digital footprint is spreading: Many of the videos I save have been sent to or received by at least one other person. Also Store it on one or two cloud platforms.
100 grams is only an approximate figure, and the actual figure could be significantly higher or lower depending on variables such as the type of server data the video is stored on. The main factor is where the video is stored. For example, Google Cloud storage in Ohio produces five times more emissions than in Oregon. Whether the power grid runs on clean energy makes a big difference. Emissions also vary depending on how often the data is accessed and distributed. In 2020, Professor Rabbi Bashloush of the University of East London estimated that the energy required to display Cristiano Ronaldo's Instagram photos to his then-190 million followers could power a household for five to six years every time he posted one.
“Every time you hit send or upload, you need to think about what the impact is,” Jackson said. As a first step, he suggests taking a look at your phone and computer and getting rid of any data you'll never use again. (The industry term for such trash is “waste.”) Dark Data(Much of Jackson's research focuses on teaching companies to reuse old information instead of creating new bytes.) That's easier said than done. When I was digging through old videos for this article, I found a lot of clips that brought back cherished memories. None of these videos were particularly interesting. But data centers stored data for so long that watching them now was a joyous, transporting experience to a simpler time. Deciding whether to discard these data is not the same as deciding whether to turn off a light bulb when you leave a room. “A light bulb is something you just go back in and turn back on,” Jackson acknowledged. “Once you've discarded it, it's gone.”
Even my feelings about the train video, which does not evoke fond memories, remain unresolved. For now, it's still there.
In a report published in 2021, Berners-Lee and a team of researchers concluded that the information and communications sector would need to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 42% by this decade and 72% by the next to achieve the reductions needed to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees.
It may be comforting to think that we can all work together. But others are deeply skeptical of the very premise of individual responsibility – “the ravings of micro-consumerism”, as columnist George Monbiot put it. Data generation is a fact of life. Berners-Lee has said that the goal of tackling climate change is to “leave the world's fossil fuels in the ground”. Without systemic change, fretting about individual decisions about data use is “like trying to hold back a flood with a bucket and shovel”.
And as major companies roll out AI features that are hard to avoid, they make it hard for individuals to contribute even a little. Google recently announced it was testing a Gmail feature that creates emails with AI. In April, Meta rolled out a new feature for WhatsApp users in about a dozen countries. This means that when searching text messages, you have to scroll through multiple suggested queries to “ask Meta AI” to see the results. Apple Intelligence could make it hard for iPhone, iPad and Mac users to check the weather or set a reminder without activating a large language model.
A similar phenomenon is happening with internet-connected products. Today, about 400 million households worldwide own at least one “smart” device, such as a refrigerator, dog collar, or sex toy. By 2028, this number is expected to nearly double. According to IBM, 90% of the data uploaded by these devices is dark data, never used. And not all of this growth is driven by customer demand. Recently, I had to settle for an electric toothbrush with short battery life and weak brushing power, as the top-of-the-line model came with “smart” internet-enabled features that I didn't want near my mouth.
In other words, we're being led to a world where we can't do anything without turning on our digital lightbulb. This puts environmentally conscious consumers in a bind. “Do you really want to be the person who's so busy trying to reduce their search carbon footprint that they can't stay properly informed?” Berners-Lee asked me.
In these circumstances, working to reduce data emissions out of a sense of responsibility to the planet may be exactly what the industry wants, said Robert S. Wilson, professor and author of the book “Data and the Internet.” AI Atlas, she explained in an email. Carbon FootprintPopularized by British Petroleum, the system “contributed to a strategic shift away from systemic harm and large-scale industrial activity to individual responsibility.”
It’s not hard to imagine the tech industry, with its high reliance on fossil fuels, leading a similar movement. There are already several digital carbon footprint calculators available online. I recently used one of them, developed by a carbon reduction consulting firm that is clearly interested in making potential clients believe their footprint is large. According to the calculator, my work activities for a year emit as much CO2 as a Ford Focus driven 3,000 miles. Believe it or not, the shock of these numbers easily drowns out the bigger questions: Could the industry do more to ensure that a year of working from home doesn’t pollute as much as driving a hatchback across a continent? And if a pervasive AI were to swap its Focus for a diesel SUV, would it really be because public opinion wanted it?
Your digital carbon footprint can also mask a deeper issue: when it comes to digital decisions, less data-intensive options are often the smarter choice, regardless of whether you can measure the impact on the environment. For example, blocking third-party tracking on the web not only reduces your power consumption while you browse the internet, but also; It also helps protect privacy: AI-based search tools not only use more fossil fuels and water, but also tend to provide outright false information, and disconnecting your home appliances from the cloud makes them less vulnerable to hacks.
More fundamentally, maybe we don't need to digitize everything. Putting down my phone the next time I board a train won't save the planet, but I will look out the window with my own eyes and create a totally carbon-free memory.
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