STREAMING CARBON FOOTPRINT
Streaming media is calculated to contribute a surprising 1% of global greenhouse gases, because most regions of the world obtain electricity from fossil fuels to power their data centers, networks, and devices. Streaming large files in large quantities, then, ethically implicates spectators in the warming of the planet. Bad news — but we have some solutions!
Here’s the full report, evidence brief, and best-practices recommendations from Tackling the Carbon Footprint of Streaming Media, a year-long collaboration between ICT engineers Stephen Makonin and SFMF’s Laura U. Marks and Radek Przedpełski, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada: “Streaming Carbon Footprint”.
RESEARCH AND RESOURCES
Ready to delve deeper into why Small Files are so important? This list of resources is a great start into exploring the entangled relationship between streaming media and the environment.
Streaming and the Environment
- limits.pubpub.org ↗Calculating the Carbon Footprint of Streaming Media: Beyond the Myth of Efficiency
- mediaenviron.org ↗A Survey of ICT Engineering Research Confirms Streaming Media’s Carbon Footprint
- online.ucpress.edu ↗Let’s Deal with the Carbon Footprint of Streaming Media
- limits.pubpub.org ↗Calculating the Carbon Footprint of Streaming Media: Beyond the Myth of Efficiency
- mediaenviron.org ↗A Survey of ICT Engineering Research Confirms Streaming Media’s Carbon Footprint
- theshiftproject.org ↗Climate Crisis: The Unsustainable Use of Online Video
Small File Futures
- edoc.hu-berlin.de ↗Minimal Computing
- mediastudies.hypotheses.org ↗Reflections on the Proliferation of Online Film Festivals during the COVID-19 Global Pandemic
- post45.org ↗Bandwidth Imperialism and Small-File Media
- lowtechmagazine.com ↗Why We Need a Speed Limit for the Internet
- lowtechmagazine.com ↗Bedazzled by Energy Efficiency
ICT Engineering Articles
- doaj.org ↗New perspectives on internet electricity use in 2030
- Assessing ICT global emissions footprint: Trends to 2040 & recommendations
- Videostreaming: Energy Requirements and CO2 Emissions Background Paper: The Most Important Points in a Nutshell
- Evaluating Sustainable Interaction Design of Digital Services: The Case of YouTube
- The overlooked environmental footprint of increasing Internet use
- schiaffonati.faculty.polimi.it ↗Slow Tech: a quest for good, clean and fair ICT
AI, Blockchain, and Crypto-art
- dl.acm.org ↗Measuring the Carbon Intensity of AI in Cloud Instances
- dl.acm.org ↗Power Hungry Processing: Watts Driving the Cost of AI Deployment?
- foe.org ↗Small language models (SLMs): A cheaper, greener route into AI
- technologyreview.com ↗Training a single AI model can emit as much carbon as five cars in their lifetimes
- ieeexplore.ieee.org ↗Estimating Carbon Emissions of Artificial Intelligence
- flash---art.com ↗Toward a New Ecology of Crypto-Art: A Hybrid Manifesto
- foe.org ↗Artificial Intelligence Threats to Climate Change
Small-File Aesthetics
- sfu.ca ↗Video haptics and erotics
- e-flux.com ↗In Defense of the Poor Image
Publications
- limits.pubpub.org ↗A Holistic End-To-End Model to Calculate the Carbon Footprint of Streaming Media
- Reimagining Networks: Speculative Thinking for Low-Carbon Research Networks
- sfu.ca ↗The Carbon Footprint of Streaming Media: Problems, Calculations, Solutions
- Large-File Streaming: An Unsustainable Pleasure
- mediaenviron.org ↗A Survey of ICT Engineering Research Confirms Streaming Media’s Carbon Footprint
- sfu.ca ↗Tackling the Carbon Footprint of Streaming Media
- gallerieswest.ca ↗The Digital Turn: Keeping Art Accessible in a Time of Crisis
- millenniumfilmjournal.com ↗Small-File Movies: Saving the planet, one pixel at a time
- harun-farocki-institut.org ↗Streaming video, a surprising link between pandemic and climate crisis
- online.ucpress.edu ↗Let’s Deal with the Carbon Footprint of Streaming Media
- sfu.ca ↗Tiny movies at the end of the world
- dublin.sciencegallery.com ↗The environmental cost of binge-watching
Panels, Roundtables, Symposia, and Talks
- isea2022.isea-international.org ↗Bending the possible (one pixel at a time): Small-file ecomedia for the Anthropocene
- Small-File as Ahuman Life. Sustainable Experimental Ecomedia for the Anthropocene
- Examining the Carbon Footprint of Streaming Media in Online Teaching and Learning
- A Contribution to the Critique of the Carbon Footprint of Streaming Media. Earth’s Carrying Capacity as a Regime of Capital in the Postdigital Age
- Immaterial Material: The Carbon Footprint of Online Teaching and Learning
- vimeo.com ↗Let’s Get Together with a Small Carbon Footprint
- Tackling the Carbon Footprint of Streaming Media: A Transdisciplinary Laboratory for New Media Informatics
- Streaming media populate the ether and heat the planet
- Pushing Against the Substitution Effect: Best Practices for Carbon Neutral Streaming in Remote Teaching and Learning
- Let’s Tackle the Carbon Footprint of Streaming Media
Lectures by Dr. Laura U. Marks
Interviews and Media with Laura Marks
- madamasr.com ↗Unworkshoppable cinema: A visit to the 11th Cairo Video Festival
- interview on carbon impact of streaming media with Carolina de Ryk, Daybreak North, CBC radio ↗Ask an Online Media Expert: What’s the Carbon Footprint of the Internet?
- interview on carbon impact of streaming media with Carolina de Ryk,
- Is Our Netflix Obsession Harming the Planet? This Is the Environmental Impact of Streaming
- flash---art.com ↗Media Genealogies and Haptic Geographies
- Laura U. Marks, interview with Michael Hedges on the carbon footprint of streaming media
- stitcher.com ↗Cinema, touch, and the climate movement
- vancouversun.com ↗Streaming video is overheating the planet
- interview with Gloria Macarenko on the carbon impact of streaming media and the Small File Media Festival
- Examining the Carbon Footprint of Streaming Media in Online Teaching and Learning
SFMF in the Media
- dhakatribune.com ↗BRAC University hosts ‘Small File Media Festival Bangladesh’ showcasing eco-friendly short films
- reissue.pub ↗A Haunting Resolve: Small-file Media and States of Resolution
- straight.com ↗Small File Media Festival Thinks Outside the Streaming Box
- gallerieswest.ca ↗Small File Media Festival with Dr. Yani Kong
- straight.com ↗Small File Media Festival Is Celebrating Five Years of Sustainable Cinema
- cbc.ca ↗Small File Media Festival interview
- e-flux.com ↗Small File Media Festival Fourth Edition
- Is Our Netflix Obsession Harming the Planet? This Is the Environmental Impact of Streaming podcast interview
- espaceartactuel.com ↗Small File Media Festival
