Every Google Search Causes CO2 Emissions

[David Kay, MLS]

Hi everyone,

If you've been following the news lately, Big Data is a big threat to our knowledge, ourselves, our media, democracy and the world.  When big companies sell or license our Big Data to others for commercial or research purposes, we become their commodities.  It's not so bad if this information can be re-contextualized, reinterpreted, and then re-used for additional purposes across different departments and industries.

IT professionals, flush with funds and annual increases in funding, support this system of personal commodification by continuing to maintain that "storage is cheap". They implement cost-effective strategies built on cloud computing, but often ignore any negative side effects.  

Yesterday I read this article describing how big data companies like Google and Facebook are helping to pollute and destroy forests, our natural environment, the air we breathe, and the clouds we admire. 

"Speaking at the Internet Media Age conference in Barcelona last week, Moll showed another visualization, which she calls “DEFOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOREST,” to drive home the point. For every second spent on Google, 23 trees have to use up their CO2-sucking abilities.

This may bode well for the future of AI and their Big Algorithms, but Digital Archivists want to know, if humans can't survive in nature, is it really a
cost-effective and efficient solution?

https://qz.com/1267709/every-google-search-results-in-co2-emissions-this-real-time-dataviz-shows-how-much/

dk
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