Can Big Data Save the Environment?
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The first question you may ask yourself clicking on this article is, “What the hell is big data?” The second and most relevant question to an environmental publication is, “What the hell does that have to do with the environment?” Well, it turns out big data has a lot to do with the environment. So much so in fact that within the next 30 years, big data has the potential to either save it or destroy it.
In order to get a sense of how big data impacts the environment, it’s important to know exactly what big data is. When most people hear this term, they think of the information on our computers which is automatically generated - think search engines, social networks, or financial transactions. However, big data extends far beyond those parameters. A large majority of companies across the globe interact with each other wirelessly through the collection and transmission of huge amounts of data, and the amount of data that is in constant circulation is expanding at an unprecedented rate every day. In a yearly study done by DOMO, a software company, titled “Data Never Sleeps 7.0”, it was estimated that by 2020, there will be 40 times more bytes of data than stars in the observable universe. Considering that there are now 4.39 billion people on the Internet, all creating and streaming data, the exchange of information has become not only a social force, but an economic one as well. So, there’s a whole lot of data, and it’s growing. But what does that have to do with the environment?
All this data has to be stored somewhere. That somewhere is one of over 8 million data centers spread across the globe. These data centers are essentially huge warehouses of supercomputers tasked with storing, managing, and disseminating the company’s data. Every Google search, every episode of Love Island binge-watched, and every Venmo transaction processed has gone through one of these buildings. These data centers need massive amounts of energy at all hours of the day in order to function. Considering that coal is the world’s largest single current and future source of electricity given current trends combined with a lack of stringent energy efficiency requirements for newly manufactured data centers, and that big data uses about 50% more energy than global aviation, this economy of information has the potential to drive us off the path to maintaining global warming under 2 degrees Celsius.
However, as much potential that big data has to destroy the climate, it has just as much potential to save it. The ‘Internet of everything’ has allowed for great advancements in the information available for scientists when it comes to analyzing and predicting trends in the environment. Many environmental organizations have taken advantage of the abilities of big data in order to promote their causes.
During an elongated drought in Sacramento Valley that dried up a majority of its natural waterways, The Nature Conservatory used data sets with tens of thousands of observations on bird migration patterns to develop ‘pop-up wetlands’. These wetlands provided a vital habitat to native birds in the area. Danger Maps is another organization based in China that compiles data from the country’s environmental groups to track and report different instances of pollution and contamination, all available on an interactive map. Deforestation is a huge problem that threatens to take away the world’s largest natural form of carbon sequestration, and The Global Forest Watch draws information from over 40 organizations in order to track the health and safety of the world’s forests. This includes the ability to detect illegal mining and logging, fires, forest recovery, and industrialization. By gathering data 24/7 from these forests, this organization is able to report threatening activity and alert local officials. Although big data is incredibly beneficial in its ability to allow environmentalists to receive data 24/7 about the biosphere, it also presents a troubling duality. By collecting, storing and sharing this data, these organizations cause the very problems in which they seek to solve. A large amount of electricity needed to conduct this research- and by extension the dangerous amount of carbon being released into the atmosphere- threaten the stability of our climate system by heightening the greenhouse effect.
Big data does have the ability to be more eco-friendly, and a large number of companies have invested in long-term solutions for their carbon footprints. Microsoft has pledged to go ‘carbon negative’ by 2030. This entails moving to 100% renewables and removing all the carbon the company has released into the atmosphere since 1975. Amazon pledged to achieve 100 percent renewable energy by 2030 and 0 carbon emissions by 2040, which is an impactful goal not only in terms of their data centers, but also the environmental harms that Amazon Prime shipping causes. Google has been seen at the forefront of big data’s efforts in going green as the company has been carbon neutral for over a decade. In 2017, the company purchased enough renewable energy to match 100 percent of its global consumption for operations.
No technological or economic force has more power than big data to either save or destroy the environment, and the danger lies in the ignorance of this ultimatum. Big data companies must be able to balance the ever-increasing demand for a global wireless network with measures of energy efficiency and environmental mindfulness in order to avoid contributing to the climate crisis.