ELECTRONIC ENVIRONMENTALISM: Monitoring and Making Ecological Crises

Abstract

Electronics and all that they plug into are energy intensive. An increasing amount of energy powers everything from Google searches to text messages and smart appliances, which in turn require a vast range of resources to build and run data centers, digital devices, and communication networks. Fossil fuels provide a large proportion of the energy required to power the digital. Energy is another form of waste, like electronic waste, which contributes to the material footprint of electronic technologies. This chapter examines how digital technologies use energy, from manufacturing to powering devices to running cloud servers. While electronics consume energy, they are also used to manage energy consumption and monitor changing environments to achieve greater sustainability. By developing the concept of “electronic environmentalism,” the chapter considers how to account for the environmental impacts of electronics while analyzing how they inform energy practices.