On the path to self-destruct

Digital pollution is a growing concern, with the internet contributing to global emissions.

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As the lack of civic sense deprives the citizens of living a healthy social life, the unrestrained use of cyberspace would create e-hazards for the netizens similar to those faced by the pliers of road transport: e-traffic logjam, cyber pollution, e-fog and garbled signals. Also, the layman would be affected by emissions of greenhouse gases through e-traffic.

Our hangover from Internet and social media is not over yet; we continue to share posts pronto without any fact-check. Parochial interests birth myopic actions like instant gratification that increases the frequency of e-traffic and spurs the anthropogenic tampering with cyberspace. "Data is very polluting," says Joana Moll, whose work investigates the physicality of Internet.

The energy consumed by servers and data centres often comes from non-renewable energy sources that cause the emission of greenhouse gases such as CO2. The entire ecosystem that revolves around the Web, including the devices used to navigate it, causes 3.7% of our planet's total greenhouse gas emissions. This is greater than the volume of gas emissions generated by the global aviation industry.

Although a single email produces very little (about 4 grams of CO2 if there are no attachments), this small sum must be multiplied by more than 300 billion emails that are exchanged every day all over the world. The same is true for the 3.5 billion daily Google searches, and in general for all the more trivial activities carried out by 4.1 billion Internet users (53.6% of the population).

For every second spent on Google, 23 trees have to use up their CO2-sucking abilities. Carbonfootprint, a British environmental consultancy, puts it between 1g and 10g of CO2 per Google search.

The situation is more or less the same for other instant communication tools: a single tweet yields 0.2 grams of greenhouse emissions, while messages sent via WhatsApp or Messenger have a slightly higher impact than emails, although their frequency is much higher. Obviously, the attachments, photos and even emojis sent worsen the impact.

Over time, the relationship between technology and pollution has only become worse. By 2025, digital emissions will double, reaching 7%. It is estimated that around 2040, they will reach 14% of global emissions, slightly less than the energy consumed by all of the US. If we want to prevent our use of Internet from further contributing to the climate crisis, the way forward is digital sobriety.

Companies that use Internet, especially the Web, must play their own role in curtailing cyber pollution. Auto-run options for videos must be removed. For music, MP3 must be preferred to MP4 for repetitive listenings. High-definition versions of films and TV series must be downloaded sparingly.

On an individual level, we must refrain from sharing unnecessary audios and videos. We should keep concise and precise our chatting and commenting on social media. Binge use of social media should be timely hampered. We should bank upon apps that run offline.

For instance, instead of looking up word meanings in Google, an offline dictionary once downloaded can do what is needed. We should download videos if we want to multi-watch them instead of watching them online time and again.

Misinformation and disinformation feeding the algorithms of Internet users achieve immortal existence on the digital landscape. The anthropogenic virality of information would hinder the seemless flow of digital signals. The digital conduits will be clogged up.

If left unchecked, e-pollution would endanger the future of the digital world, which we are so proud of now, in the same manner as air pollution has threatened our existence on the earth. The day is not too far when we would be talking about digital fog caused by e-traffic, which would stifle digital communication.

It must be ingrained in our minds that unbitted use of anything activates its self-destruct. Anthropogenic straining of nature has always proved counterproductive for man.

Digital fasting is as necessary for cyber health as religious fasting for human health. The poet Friedrich Hölderlin is optimistic and we too are: "Where the danger is, grows the saving power also."