Why watching porn online is bad for planet

Streaming online pornography produces the same amount of carbon dioxide as Belgium, according to a new report by French think tank The Shift Project.


Researchers found that overall online videos emit 300 million tonnes of carbon each year and almost a third of this comes from streaming videos with pornographic content.


Earlier this year, the think tank estimated that digital technologies produce 4% of greenhouse gas emissions and that this figure could soar to 8% by 2025.

Now it has estimated the CO2 emissions due to online videos alone. They estimated how much electricity was used to carry this video data and view it on different devices, from phones to TVs. Finally, they estimated the overall emissions using global average figures for carbon emissions from electricity generation.

The research, which was lead by engineer Maxime Efoui-Hess who specialises in computer modelling, found that the energy consumption of digital technologies is increasing by 9% a year. About 60% of world data flows come from online video.

The report’s definition of “online video” does not include live video streaming such as Skype video calls, “camgirls” or telemedicine, which account for another 20% of global data flows.

The move to ever higher quality videos, such as 8K resolution, will contribute to pushing up emissions further. So too could the launch of game streaming services, such as Google’s Stadia.

The authors call for measures to limit the emissions from online videos, such as preventing them from autoplaying and not transmitting videos in high definition when it is unnecessary. For instance, some devices can now display higher resolutions than people can perceive. The report says regulation will be necessary.

Chris Preist, from the University of Bristol, told New Scientist: “This once again demonstrates the need for the designers of digital services to think carefully about the overall impact of the services they provide. For individuals, upgrading our devices less often, owning less devices, and not demanding mobile high quality internet connection everywhere are probably the most important actions we can take.”

The authors worked out global video traffic by looking at 2018 reports by companies Cisco and Sandvine. They write: “From the standpoint of climate change and other planetary boundaries, it is not a question of being ‘for’ or ‘against’ pornography, telemedicine, Netflix or emails: the challenge is to avoid a use deemed precious from being impaired by the excessive consumption of another use deemed less essential.”