Cross-posted with the EcoCultureLab blog.
Media+Environment has just published another article in its “States of Media and Environment” series, and this one should be of broad interest to environmental educators, media scholars, and environmentally concerned media users.
“Streaming Media’s Environmental Impact” draws attention to an unpopular but inescapable issue: the adverse environmental effects of streaming media. Four of the brief interventions in this multi-part article focus on streaming media’s carbon footprint, estimated by some to be 1 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions (The Shift Project 2019). This startling figure is rising at a calamitous rate as more people around the world stream more media at higher bandwidth—now exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Another factor in streaming media’s environmental impact is even less welcome: the deleterious effects of higher levels of electromagnetic frequencies that media corporations’ turn to fifth-generation (5G) wireless technology would exacerbate. These effects are well documented yet almost universally ignored. Despite all these findings, the notion abides that digital media are immaterial.
Laura U. Marks introduces the research challenges involved in calculating the carbon footprint of streaming media and suggests actions consumers and media makers can take to mitigate this environmental threat. Joseph Clark discusses the implications of digitizing huge amounts of archival film and connects material histories of news film production, distribution, and preservation or disposal to contemporary issues of digital storage, streaming, and energy use, using the newsreel archive as a case study. Jason Livingston’s contribution expands on his droll and disturbing video lecture, which presents a speculative app for mobile phones that tracks streaming, correlates it to energy use and CO2 emissions, and suggests methods to mitigate usage. Denise Oleksijczuk introduces scientific research on the health and environmental impacts of high levels of electromagnetic frequencies and suggests ways, including creative practice, to break through the resistance to these findings among telecommunications companies, governments, and the public. Lucas Hilderbrand focuses on best practices in teaching: how to educate our students about these impacts, and how teachers can resist increasing pressures to use streaming-based pedagogical media. Many communities around the world already rely on low-tech media, of necessity, and are often extremely innovative in their use (Marks 2017). However, network and media corporations are aggressively marketing devices and streaming platforms in both “developed” and “developing” regions (Cisco 2020). Many of the latter regions depend on fossil fuels and cannot afford to prioritize renewable energy and efficient systems. Thus streaming media’s carbon footprint is not just a First World problem.
Many thanks to the co-authors, peer reviewers, and to our editorial and production teams at the Carsey-Wolf Center and the University of California Press!
Read the article here: https://mediaenviron.org/article/17242-streaming-media-s-environmental-impact
And others in the series here: https://mediaenviron.org/section/1582
The carbon footprint of streaming media is certainly a concern, but Denise Oleksijczuk’s uncritical recycling of 5G conspiracy theory material doesn’t inspire much confidence in Media+Environment as a source of reliable information. Besides, hardwired connections are obviously a better choice than wireless ones, but few of us who don’t live in cities have that choice, and the article ignores the carbon footprint (and the economics) of installing that infrastructure where it doesn’t exist.
Thanks for that comment, Gary. The journal would be most welcoming of a critical reply, which we could share on the journal blog (which we’re calling “M+E+” though we haven’t completed the new page for that yet). Would you be willing to submit something (more substantive than your comment above)? The point about wired vs. wireless infrastructure seems particularly interesting.
Adrian, yes, i think i can put something together this week — i wouldn’t want to go into much detail about the 5G issue because that’s available elsewhere (Wikipedia for instance!), but i can say something about the ecology and economy of wireless internet (including streaming) in rural parts of Turtle Island like where i live. If that sounds OK, i’ll get back to you (or just post on the M+E blog?) when i have something, um, substantial.