Our digital world is not as clean as we’d like to believe.
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Have you ever wondered what happens when you hit the like button on Facebook or other social media apps? Come take a journey with us into the hidden infrastructure that supports all of our online activities. In this episode, journalist and documentary filmmaker Guillaume Pitron discusses his new book “The Dark Cloud: how the digital world is costing the earth”, which is all about the environmental and social costs of living in an increasingly digitized world.
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Brought to you by flow spark media whether it’s an iPhone or whatever kind of smartphone it conveys this idea of purity of aesthetic Perfection how do you want to believe a single second that what is clean what is beautiful at least in your hand what is beautiful can be dirty at the same Time welcome to another episode of the synapse series on science Centric this series is where we have thought-provoking conversations about science society and the natural world and who am I I am your host Eric Olsen filmmaker journalist an all-around curious creative with a passion for Science and nature but before we jump
Into this episode just a quick reminder to subscribe to the channel and hit that little bell for notifications when new content goes live thanks for helping this channel to grow and for making the world a little more science Centric now the Western world has just finished its Christmas celebrations and as we’re
Heading into the new year people are naturally reflecting on the previous year and how they might do better in the next one so I thought it would be a good time to talk to journalist guon Patron about his new book The Dark Cloud it’s all about the environmental and social
Costs of the technology we carry around in our pockets every day and the massive infrastructure that supports it the goal of this episode isn’t to shame people into not using digital technology that would be a little hypocritical considering all the technology used to create and distribute the very episode
You’re listening to right now the goal is to encourage people to be a little more mindful about how they use technology despite feeling like the cloud exists everywhere and nowhere all at once it does exist somewhere and it has real world impacts so without further Ado here’s Gom your new book is
Entitled The Dark Cloud what is the Dark Cloud I know that’s a broad top topic and what makes it dark well what’s the cloud first between you and I there is a cloud whatever I’m saying right now as I speak to you is being stored in a cloud
Which means in a server and my voice then is taking the direction of your computer and each and every day I will use 100 clouds and you will use 100 clouds on average is whenever I send an email or whenever I swipe on a dating website Whenever I send a like or order
A pizza on a website my information my data is being stored into a server and then the other person or the company wanting to get my information will connect on the same server and this server is in a cloud which means that this is data which is outsourced from my
Computer and wherever I am in the world basically uh I will find this data back my email for example because it’s in the cloud and the cloud is dark because actually it depends on the kind of electricity that makes the cloud run the cloud needs to
Work 247 360 five days a year there cannot be any Interruption of the cloud because if there is an interruption that means that you can’t surf on internet you can’t go on internet you can’t go on your email and you don’t imagine that you would like to go on your Gmail
Account and having the web page of Gmail saying oh sorry we’re down come back tomorrow it’s just impossible so because you want to be able to access your email access Facebook access WhatsApp uh access chat GPT or whatever kind of web services at any time of the day or the
Year um you need to make sure the the the companies of the cloud operating the cloud need to make sure that actually it’s uh running all the time and that means that you will actually replicate the cloud several times so if there’s one Cloud running down out of power like
One Warehouse with a service inside then you have replicated the same data in another uh server that will just run immediately instead of the first one and make sure that actually there is no interruption of service and all this is very me very much electricity consuming and um depending on the kind of
Electricity that is being used for running a cloud the cloud may be dark if the cloud is running out of power produced by a green electricity by like a wind farm or a solar farm it may be a green cloud and when the cloud is running thanks to um coal made electricity oil
Made electricity gas made electricity which is uh basically the first source of production of electricity today in the world where the cloud emits CO2 it is responsible for climate change and it it’s it’s a dark cloud so the book is entitled The Dark Cloud because it’s an investigation on the cloud so you’re
You’re calling it The Dark Cloud because you’re saying that it primarily runs on coal is that correct well basically I would answer a bit differently I would say the first source of electricity in the world today is fossil fuels uh the first way to produce electricity is um is coal uh but it’s
Also gas and it’s also oil so when you make an addition of all these sources of electricity when you want to heat yourself or when you want to when you want to run an electric car or when you want to use globally speaking um internet you will use
Electricity which is produced out of this source of electricity which are not clean right which are emitting CO2 and which are responsible for climate change another thing is the cloud at least the American cloud and I’m thinking about Microsoft Azure for example or Amazon web service or maybe uh goggle well
Google May well there is a cloud with Google obviously and uh these companies are very much aware of uh you know this situation and I’ve been much more and more aware for the last years about this thanks to Green Peace America by the way because Green Peace America for the last
10 years have been very much working on this and very much claiming in the public space that there is a link between the cloud and global warming and these companies which are in the United States running the cloud have done lots of efforts in order to actually uh uh change their
Electricity uh and and produce uh and run their cloud of electricity which is coming from solar pan else Farms so I don’t have a specific figures that I’m speaking to you now but there is a good chance that actually The Cloud of the United States at least of these three
Companies which are very important as you as you as you guess in in in the in the cloud service industry are running their electricity out of other sour of electricity but globally speaking once again internet which runs everywhere from North Korea to the United States from Chile to South Korea and and Japan
And China and from Johannesburg to Paris globally speaking the electricity first and foremost comes from Dirty sources of electricity so it’s it’s it’s fair to call the cloud globally speaking the Dark Cloud Dark Cloud and do we have any sense of how much of the internet is
Running on clean fuel versus dirty fuel or or fossil fuels it’s very hard to tell very hard first figures are not being updated every day and figures change very quickly because the industry is changing very quickly the industry has understood uh this link as I mentioned between the cloud which seems like something
Invisible intouchable actually which is made of very tangible assets very tangible infrastructures and it links to climate change so it’s changing very fast uh figures which used to be produced by Green Peace on a yearly basis they’re not produced by Green piece on such an annual basis anymore so it’s
Very hard to give you a large figure what I can tell you is that internet but more generally the digital world which goes from the mining because you need resources coming from the ground you need to unearth them in order to you know manufacture phones and servers and cables but also the
Electricity for the cloud um electricity for running the cables submarine cables which is the only way to transmit 99% of the data between continents going through the Seas yeah this electricity being needed for this ecosystem that we call the digital ecosystem uh it it requires 10% of the world production of
Electricity 10% 10% if we turn this figure into CO2 emission into CO2 emissions and we’ve done that uh this figure has been produced and there is a quite a consensus among resers it represents 4% of world CO2 emissions okay to give you comparism all the planes flying on the tops of our heads
I’m I’m talking about the commercial planes civil planes it’s amounts for 2.4% of world CO2 emissions and internet and the digital world in general accounts for 4% and given the fact that we spend more and more time on the web given the fact that that uh whenever I
Want to do a research on Google and may turn to chat GPT rather than gole given the fact that there is every day a new way of using internet for people for companies for States this uh uh impact of the digital world on the planet is getting higher and higher and higher and
Some studies actually suggest and we might believe them that the digital world uh has actually the fastest grow growing ecological impact over the planet than any other industry around the world and that 4% figure may become worldwide in terms of CO2 emission may become 8% within 15 years 20 years
Nobody knows precisely but I mean that’s getting serious and it’s time that we understand that there is nothing virtual there is nothing in mat nonmaterial yeah that the cloud is real and if we don’t understand that we’re getting we’re getting ahead of problems and that’s why I wanted to make this investigation on
The cloud hey there if you made it this far through the episode you’re probably enjoying this conversation and learning a few new things along the way if so I’d really appreciate your support so we can bring you even more quality science and nature content to YouTube head on over
To our patreon page to find out how you can support us directly we have three tiers you can join and they start at only a dollar a month links in the description below and thank you to our existing patrons for their support now on with the show so I’m in New York City
And I was just down at the Google uh store in Manhattan and you go I was just thinking about this as I was reading your book and you go in and it’s very clean and everything’s very white and there’s no cables anywhere and you know they have these lovely devices that are
Very Sleek looking but there’s all this you know your book is about all this stuff going on behind the scenes of that and a lot of it’s very dirty you know in terms of of of Mining and stuff could you just um for for listeners could you just take us
Through let’s say you’re on Facebook and your your friend posts a photo uh or your family member posts a photo and you hit like what happens you know it just seems magical almost it seems just in this ether but what is what happens when you click like on that on that
Photo well uh first I um I was interested in what you said walking in New York and passing by an Apple shop everything is is clean and this marketing uh makes you believe that when when it’s about the digital world everything is clean everything is is
Virgin uh and this is very ID I think when you have a phone within your hand that’s such a beautiful object that’s a piece of art uh it’s so it’s so pure it it conveys an idea of Purity right exactly there’s no button and it was
Meant to be that way when when Steve Jobs when he was producing with his engineers and his designers the first iPhone said to his designers I want a phone and iPhone to look as pure as possible to convey this idea of Purity like a Zen Buddhist temple he used to
Say so he wasn’t Buddhist himself but he he used to say that the Aesthetics of then Buddhist temple in Japan was a form of of perfection in terms of Aesthetics and so what you hold within your hands whether it’s an iPhone or whatever kind of smartphone it conveys this idea of
Purity of aesthetic Perfection how do you want to believe a single Circ that what is clean what is beautiful at least in your hand what is beautiful can be dirty at the same time so there is like it’s counterintuitive because your sensus when I talk your view your eyes
You know watch every day a beautiful object which doesn’t convey at any moment this idea that behind the phone there is something complex and it’s complex it’s complex because you need metals and minerals for making the phone and it come to the Facebook question in
A minute yeah but because if you want to make a phone happen you need to extract a dozens several dozens of minerals from the ground and to fature them into a phone to make everything work and behind every you know metal of your phone whether it’s lithium gallium germanium Rare Earth lithium graphite
Indium all these Metals was name you might not be aware of by the way uh require mining operations and that is not clean at all and that is complex to extract them and to refine them and to process them and to transport them at the other end of the world all this
Complexity is not seen and it’s just not even understandable because what you have within your hands is simple simple to use and then I get back to your point if I send a like on Facebook well that might be hard precisely to tell you about Facebook because it depends where
You are in the world if you’re in the United States if you’re in Europe you don’t rely on the same infrastructures from Facebook but if you in the United States I think probably the like first will well it’s a signal that will go from the from your phone to a 4G antenna
On the top of a New York building or Houston building or wherever you are and this signal will be transformed into possessions of light and the information goes into possessions of light into fiber optics from the 4G antenna down the the building and it goes down the
Sidewalk of New York C City and that position of light you’re like is actually being transported transmitted into a fiber optic cable down the sidewalk one down and it goes into Data Centers and it may go to Oregon western coast of the United States primeville where Facebook has one
Of its most important uh data center operations that’s one of the data centers there are many others in the United States and it will be stored there and it will be replicated I explained before because if this data center is running out of power to we
Need to have a replication of the sen Center in order to run operations 247 but it will be scattered on the American territory it may be scattered outside of the United States this I’m not really sure about when you’re European consumer of Internet of Facebook Services I mean WhatsApp
Instagram Facebook uh your like is being stored in uh the Northern parts of Europe close to the Arctic Circle in Sweden in La this is where this Center is and I might explain you why it’s precisely over there but anyway it will go in Data Center and then the person
Who resing you like will connect to the same Data Center and get the like on on her or his phone and this person actually may be sitting two Ms away from you but maybe your your your neighbor of your office is 2 m away and you like his
Profile and you just say to him oh I’ve just likeed your profile check it out what you don’t know is that the real distance between you and this person is not the physical distance it’s not these two Mets it’s actually thousands of kilometers which is a travel of that
Data that may be an email that may be a picture that may be a video that may be a Google search CH GPT search all this goes all this through this spider that we could called the web which is made of concrete of glass of resources which
Need electricity and so I said to my editor but hey what if we do investigation on that what if we investigate on the contradictions of the so-called dematerialized world because there is no such thing as dematerialized technology because we’re talking about all this network of of cables fiber
Optics order to to transport this data and what if we follow the trail of a like as a journalist I I love to follow the trailer of resources I’ve been doing this for 15 years yeah following the trail of tomatoes you know rabic oil coal trail of of migrants across Africa
Have done this I’ve been following the trail of atoms what if I follow the trail of a bite and actually I realized that I could follow the trail of a bite and for two years I traveled all around the world including the United States following the trail of my life yeah and
So when we’re talking about bites we’re talking about energy right we’re talking about light and we’re talking about you know passing information but then you’re we’re you’re also talking about this material uh you know atoms essentially that that comprise the infrastructure and one of the things
That you brought up in the book which I thought was really interesting which I hadn’t heard of before was this idea this myips or mips rating um and that it tells you the starting natural resources it takes to create something so maybe you could talk a little bit about that
And I I don’t know what parts of the infrastructure are most relevant there but I think probably for people listening it’s their phone in their pocket so like you know how many material resources natural resources right does that take to say make just your phone just that end point of this
This massive in infrastructure that you’re talking about well what we need to understand is that the first ecological impact of the digital world uh is actually uh the phones and the tablets and the screens 34 billion electronic devices being used on Earth as I speak to you now and
All these wonderful objects are very complex objects they have gained in complexity over the last years because what you do with a phone today has nothing to do with what you do to do with a phone 10 years 20 years before right now with the phone you do much
More many things than just calling someone you meet the woman of the man of your life on a phone you order pizza you order a taxi you J ize yourself you make videos and you make pictures you make films so basically you need to concentrate objects which maybe used to
Be a doen into a single device which needs to which needs to be very very powerful the power of the microprocessor within your phone right now the processing power is the same that the processing Powers which used to be actually used by Z nazza during the 70s
In order to send men on Earth and each and every one of us Eric has the processing power which used to be used by NASA as a whole 50 years ago and each and every one of us has his power within our pockets so the phone to be to be
Manufactured is made of many metals with chemical and physical properties which are exceptional and to extract and process these resources you need to get them in a very DED uh um state from the earth and the mips MS material input per Service Unit is basically a ratio
Between the final weight of your product this phone which is about 150 grams and all the resources that have been moved during all the life cycle process of the phone in order to make that phone happen so you need to move much more rocks and from the ground than the final little
Gram of rare that you’re going to get from this rock and which you’re going to fure into your phone and then you need to you know you know keep in mind also and calculate the amount of water which has been necessary for example for processing The Rock and to turn this Ro
Into the metals but you need also to count uh the oil the kerosin that has been used in order to um uh bring together all the components of the phone from different parts of the world world to the manufacturer where they have been assembled assembled in order to make a
Phone happen so you calculate all these resources that directly and indirectly are being used to make your phone happen and what we discover is that uh the amount of resources necessary for for making your phone phone come to an existence is 182 times more than the final weight of
The product so no sorry it’s 1,000 200 times more which means that your 150 gram for phone is actually 182 kilograms phone that’s what I meant wow you need 182 kilograms of resources in order to produce a phone which is very lights and that’s uh in pounds what
Is that it’s about 3.3 pounds per kilogram or something like that so that’d be like 400 500 pounds of raw material to into into your little phone I would let you calculate because I’m not sure about that I think that I think yeah something like something like that
I think it’s well yeah I’m speaking with my own metrics as a I didn’t prepare that before what that’s okay that’s okay we don’t we don’t have to get into that which which systems better but um but keep in mind that objects around us are far bigger
Than what we think yeah that’s just an idea yeah my phone is the tip of the eyber and as you know what’s under the sea the part of the Iber which is under the SE is far greater than just the tip of the iberg iceberg so look at your
Phone in this way it’s just the tip of the iceberg and you don’t see what’s beneath you don’t see what’s behind you don’t see this ratio behind because basically the mine is not in your country it’s somewhere in Asia usually in poor places where nobody wants to go
And this is what we need to take into consideration the impact on the earth of your virtual world is far greater than what you may imagine when you hold your phones with your within your hands and that tells you to what extent there is no such thing as a dematerialized world
Once again the world virtualization putting your paycheck in the cloud all these words which conveys an idea of nonexistence in a physical way is very dangerous because it keeps you away from all the pollutions associated with with with the resources needed for for having enjoying your life on Facebook and and
And do you think that the these Big Tuck companies which you called fang I think it’s Facebook Amazon Netflix Google yeah apple um I mean do they is that something that they’re trying to obscure intentionally do they want to you know obscure from the end user that all this stuff is happening is
It in their interest to do that in in a way yes and that’s what I I I realized I discovered while while writing this book uh because I was in Sweden in Lapland as I mentioned before where Facebook has built a data center for European African and Middle East consumers like 800 PE
800 million people are stored within today four data centers in the city of lulo just down the Arctic Circle in Northern Sweden and the data center have seen it I’ve not been into it I couldn’t get into it but I could just you know walk around it and this data center is
Terribly boring and whenever you want to talk about this data center in Lapland in lulo in this city of Lapland everyone’s bored about it and I realize that actually Facebook was making everything possible to be very discreet to make itself quite invisibilized like you know no one really care talking
About them they’ve just come to being boring and I realized that there were other comp actually Facebook in Sweden is being legally branded as Pinacle Sweden the legal name for Facebook in Sweden for these infrastructures of Facebook of meta is Pinacle Sweden it’s not Facebook itself and I realized
Also that Amazon Industries do the same Amazon web services does the same with some of its data centers on the eastern coast of the United States yeah the data centers are being uh you legally registered by a name um vand Industries yes I also realized that and it’s very
Interesting stuff that there was Data Center being built by Apple I think that was in Texas you may check it out that was in southern part of the United States that was a couple of years ago and the data center would not appear when it was under construction on Google
Maps and it would only appear Google Map whenever the building was finished and whenever the data center was ready for operations which would you know completely you know inv visualize the real impacts physically speaking of this infrastructure so there is a paradox here Eric because we see Facebook logo
Everywhere on the screens but we don’t see Facebook anywhere in the physical world right and that is been studied by a researcher by a Swedish researcher studying the lulo Facebook case very well explaining the strategy of becoming invisibilized because if we don’t see you in the physical world how
Do you want to be criticized if you’re untouchable in the real sense of the word if we cannot touch Facebook in the real world because we can see the infra how do you want to make Facebook criticizable in the real world if you’re untouchable in the virtual world you’re
Untouchable in the debate that’s a way to keep away any debate regarding for example the impact of Facebook on the environment right so this was a very interesting analysis and also investigation by a researcher while quoting the Dark Cloud explaining that there’s strategy in a way I wouldn’t globalize that understand that analysis
But I would get just give specific examples of ways to make yourself so discret in the physical world that actually you can’t be criticized anymore I see okay well one thought is that someone at Amazon has a sense of humor because vandelay do you know where that reference comes from vandalay
Industries I know but please tell us this was a madeup company that GE the character George on the show Seinfeld uh was was pretending to work for so that is really funny that that has that they’re actually using that and and and that tell us about their intent yes
Yes yes this is not supposed to be a real company this is this is a front for for Amazon do you enjoy books about science and nature as much as I do they bring a lot of information together and help you learn about science in the natural world on a much deeper level
Than you just get from consuming news well we’ve created a great list of books over at our website on a page we call the reading room it also features the books of all the authors that we’ve had on this podcast any purchases made through the reading room help support
Our Channel with no added cost to you check it out at science centric.com or look for a link in the description below I guess it does seem a little bit uh the word would I would use is nefarious because those companies control a lot of online information a
Lot of online debate and if there’s no physical location then how do you it’s not like you can go pick it in front of I mean I guess you can go to Amazon headquarters but we don’t even I mean we don’t even know where these data centers
Are we don’t know much about how the company actually functions or yeah it’s interesting how do you want to go on strike in a warehouse which doesn’t exist right I mean the The Apparition centuries ago of this of of of um of um um how do you say um uh labor
Unions has been made possible because they were a place where to gather and to go on strike you would be able to prevent the access of the working force to the warehouse to stop the workforce from working that day uh but because there was a physical locations on which you could operate by
Being on strike but if there is no physical locations anymore in the virtual world how how do you want to how do you want to access that how do you want to have an impact physically speaking on them by having any action I don’t say violent action AC yeah and
This is a point and I’ve also studied that and I’ve discovered that this you know this this has been soled by us uh uh thinkers us University researchers saying that because you can’t go on strike in the virtual world or you can’t complain about something in the physical
World I mean then it means that the the struggle has to move from the physical world to the virtual world and how do you struggle in the virtual world where you for example you you become um um a hesal hacker you become someone trying to block the access to website and
That’s a way actually to express your complaints acting on on a company but acting in the acting in the virtual world and not in in the physical world again so in a way that disappearance at least this lack of visibility of the infra means that if you want to
Criticize it if you want to complain about if you want to struggle against any kind of physical impact environmental impact they have this has to be re felt so working a book writing a book is a way to do it yeah but acting virtual world playing the same roles as
This company play is also another way to do it because otherwise if you want to complain about about a cloud well you need to go to Lapland or you need to go to the desert of Utah where many put their data centers but it’s hard to do
Yeah so what Green Piece has been doing it was about 10 years ago is that they flew some huge balloons uh over the headquarters of Facebook among companies and uh it was like huge huge like balloons and on on this balloons It Was Written how clean is your cloud and
There would be many pictures and videos it was being taken out of these uh actions by Green Peace and that was a way to actually complain and act on this specific topic uh but not everyone has you know the the the capacity of action of such an NG like like green piece yeah
Yeah they circumvented the uh the system there so I mean certainly the the internet and you know all the technology supporting it I mean it’s this huge it’s this amazing tool that we have to reach people uh all over the globe I mean it’s kind of it’s kind of Staggering and I
Think at least in a couple of um points in the book you referred to us as being gods because we sort of almost have this Godlike power now to like reach out and you know communicate with anyone ac across the the globe but when we’re talking about like the environmental
Impact that these technologies have there’s this like Paradox that if you’re trying to say something about it and you’re trying to critique it let’s say you’re also using that technology to spread your message and this comes up a lot with you’re T you know you people with environmental activ activists and other
Types of activists and they show up at the you know protest or rally and they’ve all got iPhones you know like so you wrote something um that I thought was really just nailed it you said you wrote you don’t realize that by making digital the instrument of your emancipation you are running you’re
Rushing into the arms of your new master so how do you resolve this Paradox I guess that that we have these amazing tools of communication but by using them we’re also kind of playing into that game um when I wrote that I was specifically targeting the greata generation the the youth Greta thunberg
The the climate activist yeah Greta thunberg I like Greta thunberg by the way but I just wanted to raise a contradiction here uh this new generation very much aware of plastic pollution that eating too much meat is bad for the climate aware that taking planes is bad
For the climate but at same time spare heading the new ways of using these Technologies to such an extent where it may become just incompatible with the fight against climate change and I I’ve been making a making a par between the 1968 generation our parents going into the
Streats with socialist dreams but who ended up working in oil companies at a very high level so the discrepancy between the dreams of your Y and what you’ve made of these dreams whenever you became older and I’m asking the same question to Z gber generation uh you’re you’re spare heading climate movements
And that’s wonderful but you’re also opening a new chapter of human impacts on the earth and you’re spare handing it and if you are going too much into that direction you put actually exactly your struggle at your party now what I’m saying and I want to be very precise Eric I’m living
With my time I need internet to speak with you yeah I need internet to criticize internet such a parado I have this very well understanding that if I had to speak with you by coming to the United States and taking a plane rather than speaking online my CO2 impact would
Be much worse and in that that way internet is a good thing for the environment I mean it it it may you know prevent actions in the real world to take to to happen and it might be good for for for mitigating my CO2 impact I also understand that we need internet
For making good actions and and going on strike on a Friday when you are of the generation of great Aur for protesting against inactions political inactions against climate change is a good thing so it brings a question which is how do you use internet and this question is
Not being asked you know no we have the next iPhone coming and know we have chat GPT coming and we have just new technologies and we are so fascinated by the Technologies and the question is just oh what new technology would I use what new software which new hardware but
The question is For What freaking purpose and this question is not being asked and the question is a cost should be a cost benefit of Anis between what it costs including for the environment but also for your mental health or for democracy in the United States to use
Too much social media yeah and what what benefit you get out of it but this question isn’t being asked Eric because what people in the industry want me to be is a consumer right is not a citizen and as long as I remain a consumer with devices I will just look for my
Immediate benefits if I’m being asked to act as a as a citizen I will make the question more complicated I will bring in the debate more angles I will think of internet in a social way in a political way in an economic way in a mental health way but once again we need
To act as Citizens and we are not doing this we are not doing this cost benefit analysis and in my view there are two reasons for this first because we believe internet has no impact on the planet zero impact so why why should I pr myself watching the next videos of
Cat as it has no impact it has an impact but because I have this belief that it does it why should I you know prevent myself and the second thing is we believe it’s free free for for for literally free I don’t have to pay anything for that and this is false yeah
And someone has said as you know if it’s free it’s because you’re the product it’s not free that’s right it’s free because you are giving your data you you you’re giving pieces of yourself piece of you who you are in exchange for a a service on the web which is
Given G given for free in exchange for the data and actually they’re making money out of the data yeah and because you believe that it’s not impactful at all and because it’s free because it’s is a business model of of of Google today and of Facebook to just name a few
Well basically we just keep using more and more and more like in an open bar you pay for entering and then you can do whatever you want for the rest of night believe me you will end up just giving completely drunk and this isly the say we’re drunk
Of the services because we don’t understand that it’s not free and it’s not uh impact free on the plan yeah yeah yeah absolutely and I think I think um if you are using something like that where it’s a free service and you can’t figure out how are they making money off
Of this it’s because they’re making money off of you you are like you said you’re the product that’s how they’re making money they’re not making money off because you’re not paying for it somebody’s paying for it somebody’s got to pay those engineer salaries to create this whatever that thing is yeah um but
I think go ahead go ahead I was just gonna say I think what and I think a lot of people are aware of that now you know are people of a certain you know age we’ve sort of been the guinea pigs for the last 10 or 15 years of especially of
Social media you know on and and I think people I think people younger too are becoming more aware of this as you know as they come into it um that that that nothing’s private that they don’t have their privacy but I think what your book does so well is it just it elucidates
All the other material costs of of using those technologies that I don’t think people are aware of um and as I was sorry just let me I was just gonna add one more thing it’s just as I Was preparing to talk to you because um if
You looked around me you’d see I was surrounded by technology right now um you know lights cameras you know computers but I just was aware of it I became more aware of it and I was thinking about all the ways that I was connecting with the cloud you know all
The Google I love Google I love I mean that’s I run so much of my life with Google and I was like wow I I’m thinking now about where this information is going how it’s being stored so I think this I think your book’s fantastic in that regard thank you very much
Appreciate that’s a that’s an angle that we haven’t thought about until now that’s kind of a new angle yeah and that’s why I was so fascinated by the story by this investigation because it took me all around the world to talk about something which I wasn’t aare
Myself of and I knew no one would be aware of and I think what we can bring with book is something new to the public something which was unid maybe a place to wrap up our conversation is in 2023 going into 2024 as a as a human on planet Earth as
A citizen like what can we do individually um to minimize our digital impact and and extend that to companies as well because I think there are a lot of people in companies that are well-meaning that see see these new technologies and go oh wow this is fantastic and they don’t even think
About these these environmental or material costs social costs of using these Technologies like what what can they do like that actually makes a difference that’s not greenwashing so the good news Eric is that there are many things we can do individually as you said and that companies can do the first thing you
Need to do individually and the first thing companies need to do is to make people and to make yourself keep phone and tablets and computers longer usually on average we keep our phone for like two years and then we change where we should keep it for four
Years five years six years and companies should push their uh employees to do the same and if they don’t want their employees to keep their phones for two years for cyber security issues for example at least make sure that the phone uh which is still a workable phone
Can be resold to a secondhand platform company or given to an NGO which will give it to people who are needing it but there will be a second life to all your elect devices leaving your company uh my phone is an iPhone 7 I bought it three years ago it was already
Secondhand I repeat it 10 times wow screen battery button it’s still working and maybe I can keep it for two more years so doing this helps mitigating the cost of internet of the digital world environment in an incredible way so that the first thing to do U I think also
What you can do individually speaking is that may be strange just to say so but whatever you can use a Wi-Fi rather than 4G or 5G use Wi-Fi uh when you watch a video on Wi-Fi the electricities that you will consume will be much less maybe
10 times less figures depend than if you use a 4G device device this is difference between Wi-Fi and 4G uh it’s huge so whenever you’re home just stit your standard mode on Wi-Fi that makes a difference if you can don’t watch a video on your phone with a high
Definition because with a low definition or high definition on a small phone that doesn’t change anything but still I mean for you for your eyes that doesn’t change anything but in terms of electricity consumption for a high definition picture it’s much more than for low definition picture so if you can
Put your phone the videos on YouTube on the standard mode which is no definition when you’re on your phone actually that makes a world of a difference I would say if you don’t need to use chat GPT don’t use chat GPT use goggle I don’t have the specific figures but search on
Google maybe much less than you know digging all the web to find an analysis A synthesis of an answer on chat GPT um also for a company and that may be my last advice uh you want to have your data from your company in the cloud every company know is moving to the
Cloud it’s so easy to run your data when they’re in the cloud that’s much more safe now the question is where is the cloud literally speaking is it close to your office is it far because the data will have to travel more and that will come at a cost for the environment
Because there is an energetic cost of transporting the data from your office to the other end of the world if the cloud is very far depending also on where the country is your Cloud will run coal oil or nuclear or wind farms so that is where asking if you can uh to
The cloud provider what is its electricity mix and where physically speaking the cloud is because actually if it’s in China or in the United States or in Europe the electricity mix is different so when you’re company you can you can have an impact here by choosing the provider of a cloud was electricity
Mix is as green as possible these are a few examples of what you can do as an individual what you can do as a company to make things change and there is no fatality do you work for a science or technology focused organization and would like to create video content but
Don’t know where to start well my company flowbar media the publisher of this podcast can help you we are a One-Stop shop that can provide content strategy video production and even social media management our previous clients include educational institutions academic Publishers trade organizations and aerospace companies these are Innovative world changing organizations
Who are leading Humanity toward a brighter future learn more at flatpark docomo one thing that you know these companies that are hosting these data centers these uh server Farms or data centers whatever you want to call them I mean they often say that they are trying to become more efficient they’re
Switching to Green energy so on and so forth um one of the thing this is another Paradox that I’ve run across and there was a great book um I read uh and I don’t know if you’ve read it but it’s called force of nature the unlikely story of Walmart’s Green Revolution was
All about how Walmart which you know at the was the Amazon of the early 2000s was is finding ways to reduce their ecological footprint coming up with less packaging this sort of stuff but there’s a big caveat there when they switch to Greener methods Greener Technologies they save money because they’re using
Less to do more and then when they save less when they save money they they put it back into expansion to growth and so the net effect is the the net effect is zero because they’ve just become more efficient essentially so um I guess I don’t know what my question is there
But is there a way I guess to push back against that with with companies and not just NE not necessarily with tech companies but but I I feel like other companies do that sort of thing too well Eric um you’re raising a very interesting point and this is exactly
The same thing happening in the digital world exactly the same Walmart thing and we call it in the digital world we call it the rebound effect and basically companies are rushing to use more green El electricity so that whatever you do you will have a lesser impact on the environment on on
The climate change and they’re rushing to actually uh uh uh being more efficient in their data storage processes there are some ratios which are very well known by the industry which is the Pu the power unit efficiency so basically basically how much power do you use for one bite of
Data being stored and the more researchers the more uh Innovation technological development is going on the more uh actually the the mitigation is obvious and and the more it is efficient the thing is at the same time we we use more and more of these devices and uh you know I just would
Like to compare with you you probably my age I’m 43 I have I had my four my first phone in the year 2000 okay and at the time I had the right paying for one one month’s um fee to send 40 text messages a month how many text messages do I send
Every hour today 40 this is a rebound effect so on one hand you gain something exactly like Walmart and on the other end we are just you know spending so many text message for saying nothing oh I’m here I’m just coming in a minute on the one hand goggle is really
You know making its operations a search on Google is is is costing less to the Earth on the other end we’re all rushing to Jud GPT which a much more important impact so what you get on one hand you lose it on the other end this is what we
Call the rebound effect so this is a race between the power of the technology to make things better and the our capacity to use wisdom to make a better use of these Technologies this is a forward of my of the Dark Cloud by Stephen Hawking not the forward just a a quote
By Stephan Hing which I wanted to use but basically we are in a race here and we already know who’s winning who’s winning that race and this is the ways the new ways we use internet because in the future we’re going to produce so much data for running generative AIS
Connected farms uh smart buildings uh cryptocurrencies non-fungible tokens and whatever that it will go Way Beyond the cap of the Technologies to actually mitigate that impact yeah at least unless there is like amazing Technologies changing the rules of the game like a game changer we are on a
Pace that where actually the technology will not go fast enough in order to mitigate the new ways we have to use these Technologies so this is exactly the same Walmart effect and we can’t understand the digital impact the impact of the digital world on the earth if you
Don’t take into consideration all these new technologies which come Swit new cost and once again everyone’s running after these new ways of using this well I’m a I’m a little bit older than you I’m 47 so I I do remember when we had to pay per text message we had to
You know we had to pay for you only got a certain number and then you you had to pay more so um and that those were like what kilobytes of data I mean text message are like kilobytes or something I mean they’re tiny so let me let me ask
You uh one more question which is you know just speculatively like like let let’s say if nothing changes let’s say if you know you’re talking about some gamechanging technology like Quantum Computing for example that would dramatically increase the efficiency of you know Computing in general um and and
Let’s say 25 years from now if we continue on the this path if we don’t change what we’re doing what do you think the world would look like in terms of how much energy consumption is happening from our digital infrastructure these figures are being produced already today by research
Institutes wherever around the world uh so there are yeah um figures which are being assumed you know as of 2030 or 20150 depends on many scenarios but if we are in the business as usual scenario I mentioned a figure before which was 8% CO2 emission figure just the digital
World in terms of electricity uh we might double that amount of electricity it might not be 10% of the world consumption of electricity for the digital world but 30% uh 20% sorry and that may be by 2035 204 it’s even more in 2050 that may make the digital world
Just inconsistent with a fight against climate change yeah just inconsistent uh and this is also what I want to what I want to stress here we we need to care about that otherwise um we we’ll be in in big trouble um and this and this impact is not only in terms of
Energy consumption CO2 emissions it is a material impact of of the virtual world it is a mining it is a processing it is all the impact on the environment such as pollution waters on soils artificialization of soils acidification of oceans uh biodiversity losses uh planetary boundaries which are directly linked to
The mining industry for making phones and tablets and computers yeah and this is not necessarily about CO2 because we tend to think only in terms of CO2 emissions uh but actually our our ecological actions may have positive impacts Way Beyond on these CO2 emissions or or or or or or or
Mitigation Of emissions it’s all these examples that I’ve given which we also need to take into consideration so I’m a bit worried because I don’t think there is wisdom here Eric I think and and I wouldn’t like to be Biden or my own president maon because on the one hand
What I’m telling you is just obvious it’s it’s just figures produced by researchers from the best universities and and and and and and research bodies in the world on the other hand if we are if if the United States if France European countries are not wasin that
Race for 5G for deep learning for generative AIS what’s happening that China will lead the race Russia may lead the race and and in a way still being in a race means keeping my sovereignty my industrial sovereignty my job political sovereignty my techn technological sovereignty my cultural
Sovereignty I don’t want to be a cyber colony of China but if I don’t want to be a C Colony of China i’ better have my own 5G antennas and my own phones and my own web services and my own CH GPT made by the Europeans and you know you see
Here and I can’t reply I I can’t find the you know the how to bring these contradictions together on the one hand I need to protect the environment I need to make the internet World consistent with the fight against climate change in the Paris agreement on the other hand we
Are moving into a much tough world with much more J political tensions where the mastering of Internet of digital technologies will be key for leading the 21st century how do you bring these two objectives these two goals together that is a very hard question to tell and I
Don’t have the the answer is you know yeah I I feel that way too I feel like we’re we’re trying to apply old models of thinking to new problems that sort of transcend what our you know the our ways of thinking even in terms of politics because are we you know we have
Conservative and liberal you know in the United States like does that really fit with the way the world is today and all the the actual problems we have and I feel like it doesn’t I feel like we have to we have to come up with new ways of
Thinking about things um and that’s what people do and that’s why also I speak about them several parts of the book but also in the in the conclusion saying oh we see societies small Societies or thinkers or makers organizing into communities where they think of a different way of using
Internet but that means also a different way of organizing thems creating new Social Links with each other but also around a new way of using these Technologies but usually it’s about more soty and it’s only tiny percentage of the world population really do so even
Myself I’m not sure I would be ready to leave in such a way my my my relation to dig digit Technologies uh so I try to open the different Futures to show the different feutures which are being possible which are being thought which are being already put into practice by
Certain groups of people whether the most techno enthusiastic or the most you know radical community of makers including in the United States I don’t there is nothing judgmental here but just to tell you that all these societies do exist today and the future is already being written in these
Societies which I’ve been trying to meet around my my researches my investigation yeah very cool uh very interesting and we could probably talk about that aspect of it for a couple of hours um because it that’s I mean that’s one thing I love about your work is it it touches on so
Many different things going on let’s say and I was actually a little worried when we first started talking like where do I start because this is you know it touches everything uh so gam uh it’s been a pleasure talking to you again and uh such a fascinating read and um we didn’t
Really touch very much on on some of the more uh the sort of travel aspect of this in some of the crazy places that you went so if people want to learn more and and kind of go with you on this journey they should definitely check out
Your book um and speaking of which uh where can they find the book and what uh where else could they find you if they want to interact with you online in the cloud if they want to interact with you in the cloud well you find me in the cloud you
Find me on my Hotmail account I have a website gon.com my email is public you find me on social networks please do connect uh so that’s via the cloud you find the books in the cloud on amazon.com you find you find the books so you see I I’m I’m in a way
Contradictory and physically speaking by the way I may be traveling to the United States end of February beginning of March speaking in Miami New York DC maybe San Francisco uh end of February beginning of March promoting the Dark Cloud to the American public awesome and that will be
On my website every date every tour every detail will be on the website all right cool so if people want to reach out reach out but but do so mindfully like don’t don’t send don’t set gam like a ton of messages you know think about be be mindful of your messages um
Mindful of sing a message would be to invite me for a conference in the United States at these dates there you go I still have a free agenda so please do let me know if you want me to be somewhere because we could discuss that that’s a mindful way of sending me an
Email awesome all right thanks again thank you very much Eric well that’s it for this show and I hope you learned as much as I did if you’d like to reduce your online footprint you should consider joining digital cleanup day coming up this March
16th a link to the event page is in the description before we sign off a quick reminder to like this episode and leave a comment on anything you found interesting until next time I’m Eric Olsen
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