In our small mountain village in the Swiss Alps, we’ve been having an exceptionally warm winter. Max. 11°C in January, is still cold enough for our servers but some of the local businesses are suffering from not having enough visitors to the region, since people usually come here to enjoy skiing and other winter sports that require snow and colder weather.
While one strangely warm and snowless winter is not direct evidence of climate change, we can’t help but wonder what will happen if this continues every year: are we in the middle of watching something that is going away for good?
In the Swiss Alps one of the things we see going away every year is the glacier - the Pizol glacier in the Glarus Alps, just around the corner for us, has been melting with an unprecedented speed and it is [due to disappear completely by 2030.](https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/reuters/climate-activists-hold-event-to-mark-vanishing-swiss-glacier/45247240) And it is just one of the many glaciers we are hopelessly watching while it melts away.
When things turn too warm and no ice left to lock the cool temperature within, what will happen to our mountain ecosystem and to us people? It will certainly look different from today, and not in a good way.
No snow on the Alps and having most parts of southern Europe turning into deserts is what environmental scientists are forecasting with gravitas. UK Met Office researchers warn that [by 2060, the world could warm up by 4 °C](https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19778-royal-society-paints-picture-of-a-world-4-c-warmer/) which will likely cause a serious food and water shortage for the world: animals and plants will face existential threat and so will people.
It is important to note that we are living a critical time. Last Tuesday at the World Economic Forum Davos, the young environmenal activist [Greta Thunberg told the world](https://youtu.be/rJ8Q_1r9L8U) that we have less than 8 years to stop the temperature raising from more than 1.5°C, and for that "every fraction of degree matters." Every effort we do to reduce carbon emission matters and those of us who can, we need to do this in scale and with speed. Especially the ones residing in better-off countries need to get down to zero emission much faster than now - and in fact we could, when we really mean to. When every fraction of degree matters we need to look at every aspect of our daily life with attention. Not only the surface, but behind the curtains and beneath the covers.
This is often very well hidden to all of us: that everything we do online actually has carbon footprint. We just don't see it so we tend to go on without really thinking about it, but we are still responsible for everything we do - searching, clicking, downloading, uploading, transferring, streaming. Because although not so apparent on the digital surface, every data exists somewhere as physical infrastructure that runs 24/7 with power generated by some source.
But then how much carbon emission? Quite some in fact. Let's see some very easy examples, [10 minutes of YouTube equals 1g of CO2e,](https://www.creditangel.co.uk/blog/consumption-and-carbon-footprint-of-the-internet) [30 minutes of Netflix equals 1.6 kg(!) of CO2,](https://www.news18.com/news/buzz/half-an-hour-of-netflix-and-chill-emits-the-same-amount-of-co2-as-6-km-drive-2364791.html) and the list goes on and on.
Then the question comes down to how do we reduce, or avoid the CO2 emission from our digital world. A very good practice you can do easily is slimming down your digital acitivity. It's also *healthier* for most of us to get away from the screen once in a while. Pick up a book from your local library instead of that bad movie you downloaded from torrent. And of course walk or bike to that library if you can. Problem solved.
No, problem not solved. Most of us do this digital thing for a living. We need to use data and some of us are actually saving the world by doing what we do. Many of us are in fact on the good side in fighting the evil (and/or) stupid side. Then what?
Maybe your digital service provider such as your chat app or photo cloud, is run by clean energy. Or likely they are not. This picture gives you an overview of what the energy sources are per country in Europe - and remember, Europe is on the better side of the world in terms of energy sources. But even in Europe you can see most countries still use unsustainable energy sources.
Most people don't really know or care where their data is physically at. We kind of know what's bad with fast fashion or disposable plastics - that they are easy to use but destroys our environment and creates too much carbon emission - and the same logic applies to our digital data. We need to think about the easy options out there are in fact bad for the environment, say the messanger or the community chat everybody around you uses, or the cloud that just comes with your device by default. In the meantime the [IT service industry grew as big as aviation industry in terms of carbon emission](https://time.com/46777/your-data-is-dirty-the-carbon-price-of-cloud-computing/) and now it takes about 2% of total global carbon emissions. So it is really about time we start to feel towards and act responsible with our digital choices.
So to reduce or avoid your digital carbon footprints, you can start by finding out where your data physically is, and what kind of energy the infrastructure uses. Most of the times it's not that hard to find out, and if it's hidden, you need to request the information to be disclosed to your provider. Where are they keeping their servers, and what is the energy source they are using? Are they running servers with coal or other fossil fuels? Or nuclear power? O renewable energy such as water, solar or windpower?
When you pay attention to the energy sources of your digital services, you see that some of the digital service providers are claiming they are green because they do carbon offset. Then we need to ask, will carbon offset can be an answer for the current environmental crisis we are in?
The short answer is a no. Imagine, when a glass is full, not adding any drop to it would be the best approach if we do not want to overflow the glass. What we need right now is zero carbon emission from the energy source (meaning produced by 100% renewable source such as water or solarpower) and not carbon offsetting. Carbon offsetting, roughly translates into using whatever energy source available (say coal or nuclear) and paying money for funding projects for reducing the CO2 that are already added to the air. Carbon offsetting is obviously better than not offsetting, but not emitting CO2 from the energy source is better than CO2 offsetting.
There are two ways to reduce carbon emission from our digital data. One is finding the ones who are doing zero carbon already, and supporting them by using those instead of others. This will also encourage the new players coming into the IT service market to start clean with renewable energy. Two is pushing your digital service provider to change how they are running their servers, to go fully renewable. This will help forcing the bigger players in the industry to change.
But for those who are capable, we want to say that go for the first option. It is for the same reason as the zero carbon vs. carbon offset. When there are those who already doing the right things, go with them now, instead of continuing with [those who promise to reach their goal in coming decades.](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-20/amazon-s-emissions-bigger-than-some-rivals-trail-walmart) We are running out of time and can not afford waiting for big corps to lead us: we need to do things we can do as fast as we can.
