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It turns out that the dematerialised’ digital work, essential for communicating, working and consuming, is more tangible that we would like to believe. We struggle to understand the impact, obscured to us in the mirage of the cloud’, yet is virtual only in name. This ground-breaking work reveals the results of an investigation into one of the major environmental challenges of this century.
About the author
Guillaume Pitron, born in 1980, is a French award-winning journalist and documentary-maker for France's leading television channels. His work focuses on commodities and on the economic, political, and environmental issues associated with their use.
The Rare Metals War, his first book, sold 80,000 copies in France and has been translated into ten languages. Guillaume Pitron holds a master's degree in international law from the University of Georgetown (Washington, DC), and is a TEDx speaker. More information at www.en-guillaumepitron.com.
Summary
A gripping new investigation into the underbelly of digital technology, which reveals not only how costly the virtual world is, but how damaging it is to the environment.A simple 'like' sent from our smartphones mobilises will soon constitute the largest infrastructure built by man. This small notification, crossing the seven operating layers of the Internet, travels around the world, using submarine cables, telephone antennas, and data centres, going as far as the Arctic Circle.It turns out that the 'dematerialised' digital world, essential for communicating, working, and consuming, is much more tangible than we would like to believe. Today, it absorbs 10 per cent of the world's electricity and represents nearly 4 per cent of the planet's carbon dioxide emissions. We are struggling to understand these impacts, as they are obscured to us in the mirage of 'the cloud'. Translated by Bianca Jacobsohn
