Introducing Carbon Computing

Metadata

• Author: Michelle Thorne
• Full Title: Introducing Carbon Computing
• Category: articles
• Document Tags: #planet
• URL: https://branch.climateaction.tech/issues/issue-5/introducing-carbon-computing/

Highlights

• carbon computing. It describes the massive enterprise of using computers to manage the climate system—from measuring individual impacts to adjudicating global climate politics. It is an increasingly core, if under-recognized, feature of climate management and governance. As an enterprise, it makes use of technological expertise and raw computing power to document and archive the past, manage the present, and anticipate the future. It incorporates computing technologies that range from simulation software and supercomputers to accounting sheets, blockchains, and machine learning systems. It is also, at times, paradoxical, as digital networks and infrastructures make up a growing share of global energy and carbon budgets. (View Highlight)
• Academic and industry-connected researchers at Climate Change AI examine not only the climate impacts of machine learning in a global context, but the ways that machine learning might be used to mitigate climate change. Green Software Foundation, funded by industry steering partners and hosted by the Linux Foundation, is attempting to build tools and provide resources for decarbonizing the ICT industry, changing the culture of how software is built in order to prioritize sustainability. The Green Web Foundation is focused on building a fossil-free internet by 2030. (View Highlight)