The cloud is growing at a time when climate change and reducing emissions from energy use is of paramount concern. With the growth of the cloud, however, comes an increasing demand for energy. For all of this content to be delivered to us in real time, virtual mountains of video, pictures and other data must be stored somewhere and be available for almost instantaneous access. That ‘somewhere’ is data centres - massive storage facilities that consume incredible amounts of energy.
Sounds scary, right?
Except when you actually look up the numbers. Computing accounts for a bit less than 3% of U.S. energy usage, according to Lawrence Livermore Labs. The global IT industry as a whole generates about 2% of global CO2 emissions.
Cars, on the other hand, which the vast majority of the people Greenpeace is trying to target also own, are the single largest contributor to climate change, according to NASA, exceeding all other sources in their impacts, and exceeding computing's global impacts by more than a factor of ten. Greenpeace (I'm a supporter) has made a lot of noise about computing's climate impacts, while the average commute or drive to the mall is likely far, far more a threat to the future than the average month's Google searching.
In fact, in some cases, that Google search can replace that trip to work or the mall. Technology can in fact greatly increase the efficiency of urban living, particularly car-free living in walkable neighborhoods as I wrote yesterday. Indeed, the same study Greenpeace is relying on finds that tech has as much capacity to cure as harm: "The Smart 2020 study also made a compelling case for ICT’s significant potential to deliver climate and energy solutions, estimating that ICT technologies could cut 7.8 GtCO2 of global greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, a 15% reduction over business-as-usual projections."
It may pull hits to call the iPad a planet killer, but worrying about the right thing is generally a good caution. If Greenpeace really wants to get up in people's grill about something that needs to change, it should start with their cars.
PS: I'm a supporter of Greenpeace. And yes, they've mentioned cars in the past. That said, the fact the word "car" doesn't even appear on Greenpeace USA's front page is telling.
UPDATE: Quick note. Just got into a bit of conversation about Greenpeace's talking point on this, that "if it were considered a country, our collective computing carbon footprint would place 5th in world for energy use." I think it's misleading, almost to the point of dishonesty.
Parse the statement:
1) if it were a country -- immediately, in order to be a fair comparison, we'd have to know something about the ranking of national emissions, which, as it turns out, is quite different than the structure of emissions sources, so immediately we're into an apples and oranges comparison, if for no other reason that there are 212 nations, but only a small number of categories emissions sources.
2) our collective -- intentionally vague, perhaps, but for this talking point to be even vaguely true, it has to mean "global" which sounds less out of whack.
3) 5th in the world for energy use -- I still don't see how that number stacks up, but even granting its correctness, there are two problems: a) 5th in the world naturally makes people draw the association that it's the 5th biggest source of CO2, and b) "for energy use" is a completely arbitrary line, drawn apparently just to make computers seem a bigger part of the problem.
To be clear, emissions from dirty energy use in ICT manufacture/use is roughly the same magnitude of problem as emissions from cement manufacturing, or air travel, or landfill methane, or coal fires and gas flares. It's a problem, one we should fix, but this campaign makes it seem like it ought to be one of our top priorities, rather than way down the list after dealing with massive society-wide problems like transportation/land use, buildings, forestry and agriculture.
It all goes back to the point I made earlier about Comparative Measurements and Knowing Our Facts, that clarity counts, and intentionally muddying the waters to score the most temporary of small victories (if even that) is bad strategy and ultimately counter-productive.
C'mon, Greenpeace: you're better than this!