{"id":149096,"date":"2021-11-26T20:56:52","date_gmt":"2021-11-26T15:26:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=149096"},"modified":"2021-11-26T20:56:52","modified_gmt":"2021-11-26T15:26:52","slug":"decomputerize-to-decarbonize-a-climate-debate-we-cant-avoid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/decomputerize-to-decarbonize-a-climate-debate-we-cant-avoid\/","title":{"rendered":"Decomputerize to decarbonize: A climate debate we can\u2019t avoid"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

News:\u00a0<\/strong>Our planet faces an existential threat, with climate change and global warming threatening to make it un-liveable in a few decades.<\/p>\n

Digitization doesn\u2019t just pose a risk to people, It also poses a risk to the planet.<\/p>\n

How computerization and technology adoption is contributing to climate change?<\/strong><\/h5>\n

One huge factor ruining our planet is the uninhibited computerization and technology adoption, <\/strong>as is visible from the following facts:<\/p>\n

– A UN study revealed that the manufacture of one desktop computer<\/strong> took 240 kg of fossil fuels, 22 kg of chemicals and 1,500 kg of water.<\/p>\n

– A University of Massachusetts team calculated that training one model for natural-language processing<\/strong> emits 626,155 pounds of carbon dioxide, what 125 New York\u2013Beijing round trips will produce. OpenAI has estimated that the computing used to train a single AI model is increasing by a factor of 10 every year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Natural Language Processing (NLP) \u2014the branch of artificial intelligence (AI) that helps \u2018virtual assistants\u2019 like Alexa understand humans.<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

– Hundreds of data centres<\/strong> that Google, Microsoft and others use water and power at alarming rates. As per reports, data centres consume 200 terawatt hours per year. <\/strong>This is roughly the same amount as South Africa, and is likely to grow 4-5 times by 2030, which would put it on par with Japan, the world\u2019s fourth-biggest energy consumer.<\/p>\n

– Semiconductor chips: <\/strong>A fabrication unit takes $20 billion to build and need 2-4 million gallons of ultra-pure water per day<\/strong>, roughly equal to the needs of an American city of 50,000 people.<\/p>\n

In fact, the carbon footprint of the world\u2019s computational infrastructure has matched that of the aviation industry at its peak, and it is increasing at a faster rate.<\/p>\n

Hence, decomputerization is necessary for decarbonization.<\/p>\n

What is the way forward?<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Though we don’t need a ‘Luddite revolution’ but in order to decarbonize, we must decomputerize. This does not mean getting rid of computers, but only the unnecessary ones in our homes and offices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Luddites<\/strong> were the members of the organized bands of 19th-century English handicraftsmen who rioted for the destruction of the textile machinery that was displacing them. Today, the term is usually referred to any person who is against technology.<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Source:<\/strong> This post is based on the article \u201cDecomputerize to decarbonize: A climate debate we can\u2019t avoid<\/strong>\u201d published in Livemint<\/strong> on 25th Nov 2021<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

News:\u00a0Our planet faces an existential threat, with climate change and global warming threatening to make it un-liveable in a few decades. Digitization doesn\u2019t just pose a risk to people, It also poses a risk to the planet. How computerization and technology adoption is contributing to climate change? One huge factor ruining our planet is the… Continue reading Decomputerize to decarbonize: A climate debate we can\u2019t avoid<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10335,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[216],"class_list":["post-149096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-gs-paper-3","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704742315},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10335"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=149096"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149096\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}