Scientific research work has improved our lives, but its use of energy, electricity and telecommunications services has also invisibly caused a large amount of energy consumption. Recently, " Scientific American " published an article by Naomi Oreskes, professor of history of science at Harvard University and author of "Why Believe in Science" and pointed out that scientific research may be extremely expensive because it produces a huge carbon footprint.
Original text: "Scientific American": Reflect on the carbon footprint brought by scientific research work
Compilation | Li Yanwen
Pictures | Network
What is the value of science? It not only provides us with something useful through technology, but also deepens our understanding of the world around us in a way that transcends material interests, allowing us to feel our connection with the vast universe and our relationship with the power of nature. But science is also expensive, and recently some researchers have raised challenging questions about a special cost of science: carbon footprint .
Large-scale scientific research uses a large amount of carbon-based energy and emits a large amount of greenhouse gas , accelerating our current climate crisis. So while scientists help us understand the world, they are also causing some damage to the world. In a recent case study of computer science, Steven Gonzalez Monserrate, a researcher at MIT , believes that the environmental costs of this research field, especially computer cloud storage and data centers, are huge and rising. He believes that cloud computing is a "carbon monster": the electricity consumption of a data center is equivalent to the electricity consumption of 50,000 households. The entire cloud has more carbon footprint than the entire aviation industry. The carbon problem studied by Monthreit is not limited to computer science. The large observatory and space-based telescope are both large carbon emission devices. A study published earlier this year in the journal Nature Astronomy found that the world's leading observatory will generate about 20 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalents during its service cycle. In a press conference announcing the research results, the two authors said that astronomers must reduce the carbon footprint of the research facility to 1/20 if the world is to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. This may mean less large observatories are built. When the researchers analyzed their own facilities, the Astrophysics and the Institute of Planetary Sciences (IRAP), in Toulouse, France, they found that per capita greenhouse gas emissions within the facilities were 28 metric tons of CO2 equivalent per year, while per capita emissions for French citizens were 4.24 metric tons per year.
Other scientists focus on the carbon footprint of research conferences. One of the most important gatherings in climate science is the American Geophysical Union (AGU) annual meeting, which is usually held in San Francisco . Climate simulation expert Milan Klöwer and his colleagues calculated that the travel-related carbon footprint of the 2019 American Geophysical Federation meeting was 80,000 tons of carbon dioxide, with each scientist attending the conference being about 3 tons. Per capita emissions are almost equivalent to Mexico per capita annual emissions. Crover made recommendations to reduce his footprint: transfer meetings to central U.S. cities to shorten the itinerary, held every two years, and encourage online participation. Overall, these changes can reduce travel footprint by more than 90%. The American Geophysics Federation has said it plans to hold meetings in turn in the future and adopt a mixed meeting format.
However, astronomy and computer science analysis shows that it is research, not just travel, that expands the carbon footprint of science. Computer scientist Emma Strubell at Carnegie Mellon University and her colleagues concluded in a study that has not yet been peer-reviewed that the large amount of energy spent on training neural network is "preferably allocated to a home for heating" from a carbon budget standpoint. Similar questions have been raised in fields such as bioinformatics, language modeling and physics. This is a difficult reality to face. But with less time left for humans to prevent climate disasters, scientists will have to find ways to do more with less energy consumption.
article is original produced by the integrated media of the Social Science News "Thought Workshop". It was originally published in the 7th edition of the 1820th issue of the Social Science News. It is prohibited to reproduce without permission. The content in the article only represents the author's views and does not represent the position of this newspaper.
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