I didn't until I watched this video. Why the video isn't showing I have NO idea. It's a BBC report showing just how much fossil fuel is being burnt to power streaming (Cloud) data centres and is available of the BBC news website. Just one data centre in Virginia uses the same amount of energy as an entire city! Amazon are the main culprits!
Work in IT. Know all too well how much tech pollutes the world. The internet uses a LOT of power, and an absolute crap tonne of air conditioned data centres across the world is just one of the knock on effects. Not to mention all the devices that folks want connected to the internet 24/7.
Just go to the BBC website. https://www.bbc.com/news Then click on ' Dirty_ streaming:_The_internet's_big_secret It seems that some shouldn't be allowed out without someone to hold their hands!
..... and who uses the internet the most . The younger generation , who blame the oldies for their earlier life for all the planet damage . I’m not denying that I now use what’s available , but kids , that makes us jointly responsible , don’t say it s down to me from 1957 - 2000
This is all very alarmist. It's not the internet that is polluting the planet, it's the way that we generate electricity. So, if we shift to renewable energy sources, which is the aim of most developed countries, the problem decreases. It's a non-story. Why can't we have sensible reporting of the facts, rather than this misleading sensationalism?
We used to walk into town for a stag night and go to the Lakes for a honeymoon ... .... now young people have a series of stags in different countries and a honeymoon in two or three locations. Then bleat on about how I'm out at night clubbing Polar Bears to death ... ... go and get ****ed.
Absolutely . Kids blame us because our generation invented the stuff that’s harmful . I wonder what their feelings would be if we say ok it’s our fault so we will un-invent it all . So now you will have no internet , no mobile phones , no drinks in plastic bottles . The school car run is not allowed , you will walk there , or cycle or get a yellow school bus. You will find your own way to friends house , football practice and ballet lessons. Your house will have one TV set in the living room , no more and each person will be rationed to 3000 air miles per year. etc etc
When I was 5, until I was 8, I used to live at Allendale Cottages and go to school at Medomsley. I walked, because that's what we did. The bus was threepence a day which, with four kids on a miner's wage, was not possible. I've never checked before, but after reading this I had a look at my daily walk on Google .... ... it was 1.2 miles there and the same back. So, if I'm watching Sunderland's match on the internet, ****ing arrest me and charge me with the destruction of the planet.
That is obviously correct but is being as pedantic as insisting that the only reason some people are obese is that their food contains too many calories and has nothing to do with them eating too much of it or never getting off of their backsides to do any form of exercise!
ALSO, some more details here. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200305-why-your-internet-habits-are-not-as-clean-as-you-think
I think its quite the opposite, to be honest. The pedantry comes in picking on a single consumer of electrical energy and blaming that for pollution/carbon usage. You could also say (although perhaps to a lesser) extent "oh no, boiling the kettle is killing the planet". The simple equation is: we generate more power, we release more carbon. It doesn't matter what we're using that power for, we need to move to cleaner ways of generating it.
As usual, the problem with most things in our society, is extremism. The conversation has become polar opposites, each of which is ridiculous. The conversation we need to have is in the middle. It's not about blaming people who have created the world we live in and all the magnificent inventions, but it's also not about calling everyone with a concern about the planet spoiled, ungrateful or whole host of worse things either. The conversations that the world should be having is how can we make our planet more sustainable. It's not about blame but it's about taking responsibility for the future. And every world leader should be talking about that.
Got to admit I find it eyeopening how little some people are willing to walk. I used to walk home from school twice a week as my mother couldn't give me a lift and no public transport came that way. It was 3.9 miles according to route planner... (crawcrook is the middle of nowhere in fairness)
It's not the individual of the older generation who are to blame but the fact that climate change has been talked about for years and ignored for years by governments, and now governments are trying to do something but its probably too little too late. So the young generation feel let down by the previous generation. It happened under our watch not theirs so I get their frustration. Plus a lot of (man made) climate change deniers are older, which doesn't help. However, it now requires a collective effort to try and fix it across all generations.
After checking how far my school walk was I thought I'd have a look at others we used to do. We have relatives in Chopwell and that was a regular walk for Sunday dinner, 3.9 miles! Another was shopping in Consett, 2.7 miles .... ... all that way for pease pudding, ham and polony