> The internet is responsible for about as much pollution as the airline industry.<p>Sure, in absolute terms, but that is a naive way to look at things. Rather, ask yourself, has the rise of computing also led to efficiency gains across many industries which offset this?<p>Should we be more concerned that training the large ML models produce as much pollution as 10 cars over their entire lifetime. Will the near-term costs create even greater savings in the long-run?
> The internet is responsible for about as much pollution as the airline industry.<p>Which is another 2,1% then? The upside is, compared to the airline industry, you just need low CO2 polluting energy for production and running of all the electronics and telecommunication.<p>The BP campaign about "personal footprint" is the base of this displayed thinking here too.<p>Get rid of the Gas and Coal power and the internet will be much cleaner automatically, not only regarding CO2. We need a system change away from fossil energy (and meat consumption and today's concrete and some more) not less websites. The people will just spend more time on Netflix or reading someone else's blog, if you take yours down because of the BP designed "CO2 footprint" distraction.