SoylentNews

Think Tank: Streaming Video Has Massive Carbon Footprint, Needs Regulation

posted by Fnord666 on Sunday July 14 2019, @07:52AM   
from the what-about-bitcoin dept.

shortscreen writes:

The Shift Project has released a report pointing the finger at online video as a significant, and growing, cause of greenhouse gas emissions.

From New Scientist:

The transmission and viewing of online videos generates 300 million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year, or nearly 1 per cent of global emissions. On-demand video services such as Netflix account for a third of this, with online pornographic videos generating another third.

[...] The authors call for measures to limit the emissions from online videos, such as preventing them from autoplaying and not transmitting videos in high definition when it is unnecessary. For instance, some devices can now display higher resolutions than people can perceive. The report says regulation will be necessary.

No word on the carbon footprints of HTTPS, JavaScript, or advertising.

---

Original Submission

• Re:hear me out on this plz (Score: 3, Insightful) by melikamp on Monday July 15 2019, @04:58AM

  by melikamp (1886) on Monday July 15 2019, @04:58AM (#867084) Journal

  The post above is like the opposite of off-topic. I completely agree with noticing the obvious: streaming is both expensive & stupid, and is only used because of copyright monopolies. Without these monopolies distorting the free market of ideas, all the popular movies would be cached, and distribution price would be cut down by orders of magnitude.

  Parent

  Starting Score:	1		point
  Moderation		+1
  Insightful=1, Total=1
  Extra 'Insightful' Modifier		0
  Karma-Bonus Modifier		+1
  Total Score:		3