The Invisible Environmental Impact of the Internet
summary
The talk describes the tangible environmental footprint of the Internet: submarine cables (about 413 cables, ~1.2 million km) and massive data flows (~2×10^18 bytes/day) rely on billions of connected devices (≈9 billion) that consume ~500 TWh/year and generate e‑waste with only ~12.5% recycling. It reviews resource-heavy production (e.g., ~1500 L of water per phone), datacenter responses such as renewable power and cold-site deployments (Facebook in Finland) and Microsoft’s underwater server experiment, and recommends practical actions: keep devices longer, reduce DOM and image bloat on websites, and remove unnecessary third‑party tracking/CCs.
AI-written summary · about
chapters (12)
- 0:00The Questions
- 1:35What is the Internet?
- 1:58What Are the Cables?
- 2:58How Many Cables Per Day?
- 3:49What Is the First Source of Impact?
- 5:03What Is the Second Source of Impact?
- 5:56What Is the Third Source of Impact?
- 6:47What Is the Fourth Source of Impact?
- 7:53What Is the Fifth Source of Impact?
- 8:36What Is the Sixth Source of Impact?
- 8:51How to Act?
- 13:51Conclusion
related talks
27mCan tech kill or save the planet?
20mUnderstanding and Mitigating the Effects of Device and Cloud Service Design Decisions on the ...
25mTechnology's impact on climate change
15mSaving the Planet, One Byte at a Time
01h 10mThe Environmental Impact of Digital Technology: Myths, Realities and Useful Actions
43mCode kills planet earth
39mArchitecting a Sustainable Future
27mWorking towards a greener world from behind the keyboard