When we speak of the virtual world and storing things in ‘the cloud’, we seldom stop to realize that our digital climate impact is not virtual at all

Many people see digitalisation as this magical pixie dust that Tinker Bell sprinkles on old industries to make them all environmentally friendly. Stop printing newspapers and get your news online and suddenly your environmental footprint is down to zero, right?

Wrong.

In this episode of the Monster Under the Bed podcast we learn:

·        What is the climate impact of the digital sector?

·        What is Jevon’s paradox?

·        What is the digital sector doing to clean up its act?

·        That even when digital services use renewable energy, it might be using up renewable energy that otherwise might be used by more critical sources. So we should hold off on all those cat videos

·        How can you personally curtail the CO2 emissions of our own use of technology?

My guests on this episode are the European Investment Bank’s head of division for digital infrastructure Harald Gruber and risk manager Shirley Rizk. They are but two of the many experts at the EU bank who are helping me challenge various rumours, myths, and misconceptions that we are trying to overturn on this series of podcasts.

Each episode features one ‘monster under the bed’ something that we are scared of, or mistakenly believe to be true. Check out our episodes on urbanisation, healthcare, education and much more.

Look up Monster Under the Bed on your phone’s podcast app, and click ‘Subscribe’ or ‘Follow’. This way you can sleep soundly without worrying about missing any episodes – and during the night Tinker Bell will sprinkle a new episodes into your phone for you!

Also, please rate and review us, and give us feedback – I’m @AllarTankler on Twitter. 

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