‘Their demand for power will overtake all domestic consumption.’ Photo: by Thula Na on Unsplash
Data: Clive Ashwin wants us to take our heads out of the cloud
‘The cloud is emerging as an environmentally-destructive force.’
My life operates along two tracks. One is material: I meet and talk to people in the street or at the Meeting house. I go into a shop and give the assistant something material, in the form of money, and the assistant gives me the item I request. Alternatively, much of what I do is what we might call virtual. Instead of speaking to someone directly, I send an email. Instead of offering cash in a shop, I use a credit card or order online. Instead of meeting up, I join a Zoom call.
Life is ever-more reliant upon virtual communication and transactions. We use the internet to store our emails and photographs, most of which we will never print, and some of which we will never look at again. We search for information. We download music or films. Even a credit card looks too material; we use our phone or smartwatch.
This virtual communication looked at first like an environmentally-friendly revolution. Think of all the paper and ink we save, the petrol we don’t consume. To achieve this end, we depend upon something benignly called ‘the cloud’. We think of this as something harmless, drifting across the sky. It is where all the emails, photographs and music are stored. But the cloud is not environmentally cost-free; in fact, it is emerging as an environmentally-destructive force.
The cloud has a material existence in numerous ‘data storage centres’. These consist of huge warehouses of computers which rumble on night and day. They demand vast amounts of electricity and water, and acres of land. In Ireland, seventy-seven data storage centres consume as much electricity as 200,000 homes. At the present rate of growth, by 2030 their demand for power will overtake all domestic consumption.
What can one do to retard or reverse this environmental timebomb? The first thing is to change the way we think. Do not assume that because you are saving paper by sending an email, you are benefitting the planet. Do not assume that because you are not printing your photographs they have no environmental cost. Do not think that internet searches are environmentally cost free. An unnecessary Zoom conference can be more environmentally destructive than an in-person meeting.
Friends must look to politicians to curb this spread. The autocrats of the world will of course be reluctant. When their citizens use the internet, governments have access to where they are, what they do, what they buy – even what they think. In the meantime we must re-educate ourselves. Banish the assumption that if you are using a computer, a credit card, or a mobile phone, you are saving the planet for future generations. You might be doing quite the reverse.
