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Volker Wissing
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CLEMENS BILAN v EPA
Experts have long been warning of the climate-damaging energy consumption of computers - but all appeals have so far remained fruitless: countless hours of series are still being streamed on the Internet, cryptocurrencies are being mined with a great deal of computing effort, billions of data sets are being rolled over in data centers and mobile applications at 5G speed in all winds distributed.
In fact, none of this matters much.
The true amounts of data are wasted elsewhere.
"Certain things that are done digitally are done without thinking about the consequences they have for the environment," warns Volker Wissing (FDP) and is not afraid to name the real problem: "If If you look at the number of photos of food around the world, you see an enormous amount of energy consumed.” You have to ask yourself: “Is that really necessary?
Do we remember that this has significant consequences?” When he heard how much energy was used, he was “shocked”.
The minister himself is not innocent: his Instagram account shows him with cake and pizza, once he shamelessly holds a gift basket with baked goods into the camera.
Other recordings also raise doubts as to their necessity, as they only show Wissing himself over and over again.
A ZDF clip with Wissing's data reminder was shown 542,723 times on Twitter before this text was created.
It's scary.
