Digital information, could have well measurable and predictable physical effects. And its uncontrolled and immeasurable increase could lead to a possible situation of collapse, which would join the climatic, energy and demographic ones already in place.
Once again that the new generations of environmentalists but also of politicians and decision-makers will be called to make difficult choices that will require not only great courage and competence, but also a great vision, or the ability to know how to read in time scenarios that today they seem almost science fiction.
So also smart working and a long use of digital devices could spread a great consume of energies. We will reach 51% by 2030. By 2070 there will be at least 1 kg of bit stored in some cloud for each of our mobile phones, computers and tablets.
And if the increase were 50% - a completely realistic estimate if we take into account the growth of the population and the increase in access to technologies - we would reach saturation in 150 years" Even just sending a simple e-mail, about 19 grams of CO2 are emitted, taking into account both the power consumption of the PC and that of the servers involved in the traffic.
That is, with eight e-mails, almost what happens when traveling 1 kilometer of road by car is polluted in terms of CO2 emissions. Digital apparently offers more advantages than disadvantages, starting with the saving of some raw materials and the reduction of some sources of pollution.
The increasingly widespread and powerful electromagnetic fields of the various 3-4-5G systems,. Behind the ever more accelerated production of digital communication there is not only an enormous amount of raw materials extracted and converted to produce digilat items.
If, in fact, oil, coal, water, silicon, aluminum, nickel, copper, cobalt needed to support the digital system have reached immense quantities. According several experts, iIf we continue with current trends and assume an annual growth of 20%, in about 300 years the bit produced will become more numerous than the atoms of the Earth and the energy needed to keep them in motion will be equal to 18.5 × 1,015 watts, which is our current total worldwide energy consumption.