What If We Cut Digital Carbon Footprint by Four?
summary
Argues that more aggressive software optimization and ending planned obsolescence could cut the digital sector’s carbon footprint by about 25% because over 80% of impact is from manufacturing hardware rather than electricity. Proposes the EROOM rule — optimize software twofold every two years — so devices last longer, and gives concrete tool-level wins: a Python train tracker made 60× faster, an ML training pipeline 5,400× faster, and a solver improved by 408 million× through algorithmic and optimization work.
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chapters (9)
- 0:00Introduction
- 3:35Moore's law limits
- 9:33Wirth's law impact
- 17:07Digital footprint
- 27:22Software optimization examples
- 31:56Reverse Mour's law
- 35:26Moore's end opportunities
- 41:30IROM methodology
- 45:15Q&A
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