My talk “#Environmental #impact of #Internet: #Urgency, #DeGrowth, #Rebellion” https://ripe86.ripe.net/archives/video/1001/ from
#RIPE86 is already online! cc @news_en @ScientistRebellion @extinctionrebellionnl
@news_en @ScientistRebellion @extinctionrebellionnl on the same day, university of Exeter publishes both of these news: urgency to limit warming to 1.5• https://news.exeter.ac.uk/faculty-of-environment-science-and-economy/limiting-global-warming-to-1-5c-would-save-billions-from-dangerously-hot-climate/ *and* paying £10 million to create new supercomputer service for AI ?!? 🥵😤🤬
@wim_v12e @news_en @ScientistRebellion @extinctionrebellionnl is switching it off an option? In the light of “the other news” - that continuing with investments in high emissions activity is going to endangers lives of billions of people (& more-than-humans)! And considering that it’s better to do planned reduction than it being kept off by disasters (heat/flood/shortages) …
@becha @news_en @ScientistRebellion @extinctionrebellionnl
The second largest component is the networking infrastructure.
That is driven entirely by video on demand.
And then there's the cloud data centres, who also mostly serve video.
This is what we should reduce.
Supercomputing is a distraction.
@becha @news_en @ScientistRebellion @extinctionrebellionnl
If you switch it off, then you won't have weather forecasts anymore.
Supercomputers are not high emissions activity: Isambard 3 will consume less than 270 kW (peak). UK electricity demand is 61.9 GW (peak). So is less than 0.0005% of UK electricity, and in terms of CO2 emissions even less.
To my mind, targeting supercomputers is entirely the wrong battle. Most of the emissions from ICT are from manufacturing of end user devices.