Dark Clouds - To the Cloud: Big Data in a Turbulent World - page 137

Building an environmentally sound or sustainable digital world requires
fundamental changes in the behavior of IT companies, including those
leading the light to the cloud. Just because they are producing, processing,
distributing, and displaying a digital product does not mean that compa-
nies can avoid the environmental consequences of their activities. But it
also requires a fundamental change in the people and the organizations
that download, upload, transmit, receive, and display the digital world. It
is no more reasonable, and no less environmentally impactful, to demand
a world of limitless data than it is to demand a world of limitless goods.
Neither comes without a cost, and neither is sustainable without major
changes in consciousness and material practices. As Maxwell and Miller
eloquently conclude, “There are technological ixes for the Internet's
environmental problem—moving data centers off the coal-ired power
grid and onto hydro-electric, solar, geothermal and other sources; design-
ing energy eficient devices; and using smart grids to regulate and reduce
domestic and workplace energy consumption. But these ixes will not
succeed without a corresponding transformation of our consumer culture
into a culture of sustainability, one that ensures that social, political, and
economic development does not exceed or irreversibly damage the Earth's
abilities to supply and renew the natural resources upon which we depend”
(2012b). This will be dificult, and there is little time to lose. As Maxwell
and Miller also note, there are now 10 billion devices to power, and these
soak up 15 percent of all global residential energy. If the current rate of
adoption continues—that is, if there is no change in the belief that these
devices impose no, or little, burden on the environment—then they will
require 30 percent of the world electrical grid by 2022 and 45 percent by
2030. Meanwhile, the power demands of cloud data centers are expanding
at an even faster rate, growing by 56 percent between 2005 and 2010, at
a time when worldwide industrial energy growth was lat (ibid.).
Privacy and Security
Privacy and security concerns are coming together to form another ques-
tion mark over the IT industry, including cloud computing and big data.
In order to properly assess these concerns, it is useful to begin by con-
sidering different ways to think about privacy and security. At the risk of