Post #20 Greener WiFi/Internet (For Beginners)

Date

26.12.23

I am not a WiFi tech. nor I.T. trained. You may wish to follow along with my own layperson thoughts that I am happy to share here after my research. Your own thinking & conclusions are also necessary. Hopefully I can save you some time by sending some of your thoughts in helpful directions & towards useful questions.

WiFi / internet access; in the air around us; getting accessible almost everywhere now. Is WiFi (the internet…) generally sustainable &/or eco-friendly (even healthy to be around?). I have seen lots of thoughts & will try to hit some of the highlights here. Aiming for optimal & along the way, I celebrate improvements towards better & greener. In this post by “greener”, I generally mean better for the planet Earth.

Does WiFi (the internet) use lots of energy & produce carbon? Yes:

– for one thing, due to “external servers that store & process data” every time we access the internet;

– there are huge data centres that each contain more than 5,000 servers. Important then to run these centres with renewable energy, locating them where abundant wind /solar / geothermal / hydroelectric power is available; hopefully power source transitions are in process; &

– a couple of years ago, apparently internet-connected devices made “3.7% of global greenhouse emissions” & were on track then “to double by 2025”.

Food for thought: several years ago, “around 30 billion internet-connected devices” of many types already existed on Earth (& more by now).

Here’s to a more energy-efficient internet. One hopeful trend emerging is renewable-energy-powered web hosting.

And some of the personal ways suggested to reduce the energy consumption include: using the internet more mindfully & not scrolling aimlessly; unsubscribing from spam emails instead of just deleting them; turning off a device when it’s not in use; & seeking out companies that show they care e.g. that move towards net-zero emissions or being a carbon-free company.

That’s about all my holiday-ish brain will push out for now: some starter thoughts on this subject.

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