As we all move to a more indoor-focused lifestyle for the foreseeable future, it seems only natural to turn to Netflix for some reprieve.
And, why not? It's a safe and relatively harmless way of getting in some light entertainment, right? Not so fast, it seems.
A new study has analysed just how much of a carbon footprint our streaming habits are leaving, and it's probably larger than you think.
Energy comparison site SaveonEnergy, which operates in the US and UK, has used official Netflix viewership figures to determine the environmental impact of streaming. Using figures for Netflix’s top shows and movies, they then compared it to the equivalent in miles driven by a car, and the amount of carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere.
And some of the findings might be enough to have you turning to your favourite book for some quiet time, instead.
For instance, the 80 million people who watched Netflix's most-streamed original, Birdbox, essentially drove a car 235 million kilometers, and emitted over 66 million kilograms of carbon dioxide.
For those who tuned in to season three of Stranger Things (64 million views), you contributed to 420m driving miles and the production of 304m kg of carbon dioxide.
As for the 73m streams of Murder Mystery, this translates to driving over 167m miles and 47m kg of carbon dioxide.
And so it goes on.
So how is this possible, I hear you ask, considering that streaming is essentially invisible? Well, it all comes down to the cloud.
Every innovation delivered across the internet is run from data centres, colossal buildings as big as nine hectares, situated well away from prying eyes in deserts or tundra. The statistics for their power usage are eye opening.
Some estimates predict that by 2025, data centres could be responsible for 20 per cent of global energy consumption, and bearing in mind Greenpeace’s analysis that only 20 per cent of that electricity is renewable, it represents a significant burden on the environment. And yet it’s all being driven by us, by streaming videos, using artificial intelligences and interacting with the cloud.
At the end of the day, it's not just Netflix. Many services force us to use more energy than we really need to. YouTube is frequently used to listen to music rather than watching videos, and last year, researchers at the University Of Bristol released a study suggesting that were YouTube to introduce a feature that turned off video that wasn’t being actively watched, it could reduce annual carbon emissions by an amount equivalent to 50,000 cars. The authors of the study called such things “digital waste”.
Some claim that using data centres leads to unacknowledged efficiencies in the workplace or in the home, but the biggest cloud providers, Amazon, Google and Microsoft, are under increasing pressure to take these ecological issues seriously.
The specs: 2018 Harley-Davidson Fat Boy
Price, base / as tested Dh97,600
Engine 1,745cc Milwaukee-Eight v-twin engine
Transmission Six-speed gearbox
Power 78hp @ 5,250rpm
Torque 145Nm @ 3,000rpm
Fuel economy, combined 5.0L / 100km (estimate)
SQUAD
Ali Khaseif, Fahad Al Dhanhani, Adel Al Hosani, Mohammed Al Shamsi, Bandar Al Ahbabi, Mohammed Barghash, Salem Rashid, Khalifa Al Hammadi, Shaheen Abdulrahman, Hassan Al Mahrami, Walid Abbas, Mahmoud Khamis, Yousef Jaber, Saeed Ahmed, Majed Sorour, Majed Hassan, Ali Salmeen, Abdullah Ramadan, Khalil Al Hammadi, Fabio De Lima, Khalfan Mubarak, Tahnoun Al Zaabi, Ali Saleh, Caio Canedo, Muhammed Jumah, Ali Mabkhout, Sebastian Tagliabue, Zayed Al Ameri
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Children who witnessed blood bath want to help others
Aged just 11, Khulood Al Najjar’s daughter, Nora, bravely attempted to fight off Philip Spence. Her finger was injured when she put her hand in between the claw hammer and her mother’s head.
As a vital witness, she was forced to relive the ordeal by police who needed to identify the attacker and ensure he was found guilty.
Now aged 16, Nora has decided she wants to dedicate her career to helping other victims of crime.
“It was very horrible for her. She saw her mum, dying, just next to her eyes. But now she just wants to go forward,” said Khulood, speaking about how her eldest daughter was dealing with the trauma of the incident five years ago. “She is saying, 'mama, I want to be a lawyer, I want to help people achieve justice'.”
Khulood’s youngest daughter, Fatima, was seven at the time of the attack and attempted to help paramedics responding to the incident.
“Now she wants to be a maxillofacial doctor,” Khulood said. “She said to me ‘it is because a maxillofacial doctor returned your face, mama’. Now she wants to help people see themselves in the mirror again.”
Khulood’s son, Saeed, was nine in 2014 and slept through the attack. While he did not witness the trauma, this made it more difficult for him to understand what had happened. He has ambitions to become an engineer.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
