this post was submitted on 18 Feb 2024
163 points (86.9% liked)
Asklemmy
43856 readers
1822 users here now
A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
- Open-ended question
- Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
- Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
- Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
- An actual topic of discussion
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
- Lemmyverse: community search
- sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
- !lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
For all the comments that say “the real problem is…”: this is crisis and working on all emission sources contributes to a solution not just the biggest emitters.
Everything we online has an impact in the real world and there’s some value in reminding people that. And yes, some sites could be causing a lot emissions than others.
Some are powered by solar, others by coal.
ARM chips are more energy efficient than x86 and so on.
You can invent the worlds most energy efficient CPU, put it on every server rack in the world, and all your progress will be undone by that one billionaire who decides they want international taco bell at 3 AM.
On the other hand, you can approach the dramatic cut of emissions from both angles, as in "you are not legally able to do what you want as long as you can pay for it, and you have the responsibility in minimizing emissions".
Internet does generate a lot of emissions. Streaming quality, website size. Whatever we do to reduce the energy demand is a good idea, as long as we don't think of it as " The Solution", but as part of a wide range of actions aimed at slashing energy consumption.
We can have a real impact by focusing hard enough on 0.00001% of the problem!
Oh wait, no, we can't.
There are lots folks and lots of problems. We don’t have to focus. We can work on many aspects at the same time, big and small.