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How smart phones are causing global warming

Q: How are smart phones causing global warming?

Q: Can use of technology increase global warming?

Krishna: Yes, use of most of advanced technology and smart phone use can cause and increase AGW! There is no doubt about it! How?

The path of digital transformation of communications, manufacturing, and banking, among others, of which we believe ourselves to be in dire need, does not come at no cost to the environment, labour market, and societal well-being .

The mass production of smartphones in mega factories, of course, also greatly contributes to climate change with 85%-95% of a smartphone’s overall carbon footprint produced during the production process. The batteries, integrated circuits, speakers, and screens used to manufacture smartphones — along with every other single component that goes into their manufacture — are themselves mass-produced, creating carbon footprints, heat emissions, and environmental pollution of their own.

The environmental impact associated with smartphones, however, does not end with their hardware production and the smartphone’s physical components. The networking and data centers needed for the software development of the operating systems used in smartphones, such as IOS and Android among others, can also be energy-intensive, with significant carbon and heat emissions. According to the International Energy Agency, for instance, data centers consume approximately 200 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity, or nearly 1% of global electricity demand, contributing to 0.3% of all global CO2 emissions .

The actual usage of smartphones also produces an environmental impact. Research on the annual carbon emissions from smartphone usage provides an estimate of an average of 63 kilograms of CO2 emissions produced, from only one hour of smartphone usage per day, for a year, and up to 90 kilograms of CO2 emissions produced for 10 hours of usage per day, for a year. Although this demonstrates that the impact of the production process is much higher than that of the smartphone’s use, CO2 emissions from usage continue to increase as more people are becoming smartphone-dependent.

The practice of frequently upgrading our smartphones when new versions are released creates an enormous amount of physical e-waste.

Finally, the telecom sector on which our phones rely produces its own carbon footprint, heat emissions, and e-waste.

Many of the other technologies that are currently trending have been found to have a significant impact on the environment. Digital currencies are one such example, with Bitcoin and Ethereum, in particular, being so damaging to the environment that they threaten to reverse any gains achieved through the transition to electric vehicles and the reduction in fossil fuels use. Much of this impact resides in the energy and processing intensive mining of these digital currencies, and the proofs of work that underpin their production.

Training models and deep machine learning for Artificial Intelligence systems are also energy and data processing intensive, with their own significant power consumption levels and, accordingly, their own emissions.

As we continue to transition to a more digitalized world, careful consideration will be needed to determine what trade-offs we will find acceptable, and exactly how we can collectively manage the costs and benefits of such a transition.

Now after reading this, can anyone reduce their phone usage? Atleast stop useless chatting?

A million dollar Q!

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