Kendra Tupper summarizes Google’s recent conference on the environmental impact of the Internet:
[K]eynote speaker and former Vice President of the United States Al Gore frame[d] the importance of the problem: the ICT sector and its associated energy use are growing at an unprecedented rate. Within the next seven years, there will be 50 billion smart devices connected to the Internet. Researchers estimate this could account for around 10 percent of current U.S. electricity consumption. Really, no one knows; not even Google. But the number will be significant. With that staggering energy consumption in mind, Gore stressed the urgency of the climate crisis we are facing, referring to the recent news reports of climate-related weather disasters as “a nature hike through the Book of Revelation.” …
Eric Schmidt, executive director of Google, kicked off the afternoon breakouts with an inspirational talk that really got to the heart of the matter—the growth in this sector is going to continue. And it’s adding immeasurable societal value in ways that we never could have dreamed of. The Internet has provided consumers with information to make more sustainable consumer purchases and enabled telecommuting and teleconferencing as alternatives to carbon-intensive travel. In some societies, the Internet provides people with their only access to medical treatment, politics, education, and socialization outside of their culture. “You think the Internet matters?” he asked. “It matters a lot.” He stressed that the solution shouldn’t be to use the Internet less, and certainly not to limit the global reach of these services. Instead, we must make the system components more efficient; power the sector with clean renewable energy; and leverage the Internet to help solve the climate crisis.
The Dish 