The Internet was born 50 years ago and has been open to the public for about 30 years. It is a daily tool for more than 65% of the world’s population. In just a few decades, its global success has led to countless new tools and an immeasurable drain on resources. Today, research shows they are not enough…
from one drop to another
Email, instant messaging, search engines, social networks, online games, cloud, video on demand, avatars, Internet of Things (IoT), Metaverse, Internet, blockchain, cryptocurrency, data, artificial intelligence…digital Services evolve over time To meet these needs, their architecture has expanded and become more complex. Today we can enter a dematerialized virtual world, “partly cloudy” …So many adjectives give it a certain mystical aspect. However, its vast infrastructure is physical and greedily consumes energy and resources, often without its users realizing it.
Consider a drop of ordinary water. This is actually a drop of history. After a long journey through space 4.5 billion years ago, it settled on Earth and never left it, imprisoned in the nascent atmosphere². Millions of years later, it passed through the cells of a large Jurassic lizard. When the first tribe of bipeds reared their heads, there were the same drops in a lake in Africa. Thousands of years later, it was again involved in floating the warships of William the Conqueror, who invaded England in 1066. On the temple of husband.
Because, let us repeat, every hydrogen atom, every oxygen atom, every water molecule that we drink has been there in fixed amounts since the beginning of the earth, and we share them with each other. Never more, never less. This is true for all elements: boron, lithium, zinc, coal…
The other side of digitalization
In his book, “Digital Hell” (Les Liens qui Libération, 2023), Guillaume Pitron makes a shocking observation. As a journalist and researcher at the Institute of International and Strategic Relations (IRIS), he traveled to five continents trying to get a taste of the global Internet. He believes that the digital world is a very tangible world. From undersea cables to lithium mines to coal mines, it has never been more greedy for raw materials. One of the most striking examples is the simple journey like Your Instagram photo shows your neighbor at the same table. On the terrace of a Paris cafe, this innocuous gesture can be traced back to 5G on the first relay antenna nearby. this like Descend at the speed of light into the fiber optic lines that lie beneath the streets and travel hundreds of kilometers to the coast of Nantes. From there, it hurtled into one of the undersea cables, crossed the Atlantic Ridge, and then to one of Meta’s many servers in the United States. It immediately travels in the opposite direction, traveling through the same infrastructure and delivering a dose of dopamine to your brain just a few milliseconds later.
Guillaume Pitron says the infrastructure required for digital work will soon represent the greatest human work ever undertaken. Servers, cables, antennas, fiber optics, chips, terminals…it will be millions of kilometers and millions of tons. And it will only continue to grow. To date, digital technology appears to have consumed 10% of the world’s electricity (data centers alone consume 3%) and is responsible for 5% of greenhouse gas emissions⁴. More than civil aviation! Who would have thought that regularly storing photos of your kids in a Dropbox account could soon cause more harm to the planet than an A380 cabin flying at Mach 1?
At a time when climate change and natural resource depletion are concerns, the impact of digital technology on the environment remains largely unknown. However, existing research⁵ shows that these issues are considerable and concerning, whether in terms of energy consumption or raw materials.
fly forward
The arrival of generative artificial intelligence certainly doesn’t help. Requests to Chat GPT (OpenAI) consume nearly ten times as much power as simple requests to the search engine. Let’s put aside image- or video-generating AI like Midjourney or Runway… Open AI director Sam Altman claimed in a recent interview that he himself doesn’t know if the Earth will be able to handle such a demand anytime soon. future⁶ access to energy. In another warning sign, a few weeks ago Microsoft rushed to sign a 20-year agreement with energy company Constellation Energy to reopen the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania, the site of the worst radioactive accident. Been there⁷. Apart from the serious problems of energy privatization (therefore, it is always good to (re)read ravage Barjavel), it was almost an admission of weakness that we discovered that the major players in the industry actually did not foresee anything. Google, for its part, admits it will have a hard time meeting its carbon neutrality goal. We want to believe them… A few weeks ago, his former boss Éric Schmidt declared: “…I would rather bet on artificial intelligence to solve the environmental crisis than to force it and solve the problem anyway. ». Atmosphere.
Beyond everyone’s status and financial interests, it’s still our entire world that flickers like a lightbulb at the end of its life. Geopolitical tensions have arisen in different parts of the planet as they compete for the best resources. China recently conducted military exercises near Taiwan Silicon Valley Those from Asia are the most prominent examples.
It is impossible, or even expected, to stop using digital services tomorrow, just as it was impossible to deprive ourselves of emerging electricity in the 19th century. But with today’s level of global awakening in humanity, it would be almost criminal to continue with this rash impulse. With stocks of non-living resources stretched thin on our little interstellar rock, we must learn to be rational. Some would say, with a hint of cynicism, that the time we spend playing online simulations and management games will soon be put to good use…
A sign of hope?
For the first time in post-internet history, a new generation seems to want to mobilize to “save” the planet, taking countries to court for climate inaction and replanting trees. However, these groups are increasingly using online commerce, virtual reality and gamble. They like video on demand (video on demand) and knows no other world than this one.
However, digital technology can be an asset in the ecological transition, and education on environmental issues becomes « Soft skills » It is crucial for everyone to predict future shocks. Solutions are emerging from elsewhere, ways of working are being reshaped, and “responsible digitalization” is trying to find its place in the sun by carrying data. greenwashing and famous « Cornucopia⁸ ». More consumption and usage patterns «Low-tech»across the industry, weaving their first fabrics. Recycling, repackaging, more frugal software, eco-design, local servers, decentralized networks, loyal operators… Of course, this is still too little, but let’s realize that it is better than the Mad Max ending.
Therefore, we must abandon all candor: digital technology unfolds before our eyes, projecting us at high speeds beyond the physical limits of our common home. We all know the analogy. From the perspective of Earth’s history, with just seconds to go before midnight, Homo sapiens has already left more of its mark on the planet than any other species. Unless we rethink our situation, all the drops in history will soon cool the data center Hyperscale Digital Planet’s…
refer to
- 1: “Digital 2024 – Global Digital Data October Report”, wearesocial.com, October 2024
- 2: Hubert Reeves, Stardust, Souil, 1984
- 3: “Click Clean: Who Will Win the Race to Build a Greener Web?” » (PDF), Greenpeace International, Amsterdam, 2017.
- 4: “Lean ICT: for digital sobriety,” op. Quote.
- 5: Transformation Project, ADEME, International Energy Agency (IEA)
- 6: Conference hosted by Bloomberg in Davos on January 15, 2024
- 7: https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/microsoft-may-pay-constellation-premium-three-mile-island-power-agreement-2024-09-23/
- 8: Cornucopiaism (or Cornucopia Myth) is an optimistic utopian economic, environmental and philosophical theory, a belief (or hope) about unlimited earth resources and continuous technological innovation.