Just read an online article about how to reduce your digital carbon footprint. They came up with solutions like “switch off your smartphone once in a while”.
WHAT???
Completely ridiculous, so here are my personal recommendations how to significantly reduce global digital carbon footprint.
- Do not play video games.
- Do not mine bitcoins.
- Use a laptop instead of a PC.
- Use a Raspberry Pi instead of a laptop.
- Use a tablet or smartphone with WiFi instead of a Raspberry Pi.
- Use energy efficient programming languages like C, C++ or Rust instead of Java, Go or JavaScript.
- Centralize your data at cloud providers located in countries that use cheap and low-carbon nuclear energy.
- Avoid cloud services that use coal energy.
For the record:
#1 With “video games” I mean fully blown graphic rich applications that run locally on your PC and require special video equipment like high performance graphics cards and low response time monitors. Games like Tetris that don’t require any special hardware do not fall into this category. The growing market of mobile games also does not qualify for saving a considerable amount of energy.
#7 There is a lot of controversial information out there about the overall costs of nuclear power plants. While some say the price for building a new nuclear power plant is much higher than one for renewable energies, others claim that the ongoing costs to maintain a nuclear power plant are much cheaper and therefore in the end saves money. Fact is, lots of countries continue to build new nuclear power plants because they do not want to switch to renewable eco-friendly sources. 1 2 3 4
Worldwide there are 1.35 million people dying in traffic accidents every year 1. Nevertheless nobody would come to the conclusion to eliminate cars. Instead the car industry tries to find new ways to make cars safer, more energy efficient and Eco friendly. The same should be true for nuclear power plants. For example today’s modern nuclear reactors are capable of transforming nuclear waste itself into energy.
One-word-answer Q&A about coal-fired power plants |
|
| Question | Answer |
|
Since when do we know that coal-fired power plants are the number one reason for climate change? (Yes, it’s coal-fired power plants, not cars!) |
Decades. |
|
Why didn’t we make coal exit plans earlier? |
Jobs. |
|
Why don’t renewable energy sources provide enough clean energy in the future? |
Efficiency. |
|
Changing from nuclear energy to renewable energies has a positive impact on climate change, right? |
Wrong. |
|
But would have a change from coal energy to renewable energies made a huge positive impact on climate change 30 years ago? |
Right. |
 |
|
Here is an overview of all countries with the highest carbon emission per capita. USA is ranking first, Germany is ranking fourth even before China and the rest of the EU.
So if anyone is asking you to take the train instead of the car for the sake of climate change, or use paper bags instead of plastic bags to safe the planet, your answer should be: “You had your chance 30 years ago to exit coal power plants and do something that really has an impact, but you f* it up.”
Roland's Linux Blog 