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Here is the methodology https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200131-why-and-how-does-future-planet-count-carbon https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200131-why-
by barbegal 6y ago
Here is the methodology https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200131-why-and-how-does-future-planet-count-carbon https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200131-why-and-how-does...
I think most of it comes from your client device. Your laptop may be using 50W of power or about 20g of CO2 per hour so reading the article for 6 minutes is ~2g of CO2.
- maelito 6y agoIn case someone wants to do the math again : 50W for 1 hour : 50Wh or 0.050kWh California : 187gCO₂eq/kWh according to https://www.electricitymap.org/zone/US-CAL-CISO https://www.electricitymap.org/zone/US-CAL-CISO -> 9.35gCO₂eq/h -> 0.16g/min -> 0.935g for 6 minutes
- sephamorr 6y agoI'd probably use closer to 10W as the device power level (a standard laptop, what I'm using right now), so the number for me would get close to 0.2g, but your point stands; the article is answering a different question than I was assuming, but regardless it seems that the majority of the energy is clearly the local device.
- maelito 6y agoIsn't a modern laptop mostly idle after loading the page (< 5 seconds) ? There would be a peak for the first seconds, then less than 10W for the rest of the reading time ?
- danielbarla 6y agoThat makes quite a lot of sense, but it also makes me frown a bit at the phrasing, which I feel is quite misleading. "The digital emissions from this story are an estimated 1.2g to 3.6g CO2 per page view." Re-reading it, technically they are right, if "view" is taken in a non-technical fashion. But everyone reading that text would assume if they click refresh, the emissions are doubled. Also, I do wonder if they take into account bounced users - I would not be surprised if most people only spent 5 or so seconds on the page before moving on.
- maffydub 6y agoSurely "view" should also include the human doing the viewing? :P According to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24068986 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24068986, that's 1g every 90s, so 4g CO2 for 6 minutes reading time.
- proto-n 6y agoAlso why not add sustinance cost for the human looking at the device then? Food, water, heating/cooling, clothes, glasses, etc... Proportionally for 2 minutes of course.
- chriswarbo 6y agoThose costs would be the same if the article was read from a newspaper or magazine, so they can be factored out.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- 0xffff2 6y agoMy desktop is on whether I'm reading the article or not so those costs can be factored out too.