All datacenters and network infrastructure in the world account for 2,5% at most (I don't remember the source anymore, I read this months ago) so I can't imagine machine learning is more than maybe 0,5% total.
So instead of going after actually useful technology that consumes a tiny fraction, how about you look at some of the truly unnecessary users that consume much more than that. What if we added up all the electricity used by the entire supply chains of all the smartphones people throw away prematurely due to planned obsolescence? Or all the other unrepairable disposable devices? How about all the clothing that's made of increasingly shittier materials and often needs to be replaced every two years? Some estimates for the clothing industry are as high as 10% of global GHG emission, primarily from fossil fuel power plants. And don't get me started on all the cars that wouldn't need to be produced if we fixed public transport and americans stopped building cities like idiots.
The only reason people go after the IT sector is that it's easy to stick a current probe on the wire and get a relatively large number. Turning it off is simple and makes the number, however small, go down. All the actual big users are complex systems that are difficult to analyze and "turn off".
So instead of going after actually useful technology that consumes a tiny fraction, how about you look at some of the truly unnecessary users that consume much more than that. What if we added up all the electricity used by the entire supply chains of all the smartphones people throw away prematurely due to planned obsolescence? Or all the other unrepairable disposable devices? How about all the clothing that's made of increasingly shittier materials and often needs to be replaced every two years? Some estimates for the clothing industry are as high as 10% of global GHG emission, primarily from fossil fuel power plants. And don't get me started on all the cars that wouldn't need to be produced if we fixed public transport and americans stopped building cities like idiots.
The only reason people go after the IT sector is that it's easy to stick a current probe on the wire and get a relatively large number. Turning it off is simple and makes the number, however small, go down. All the actual big users are complex systems that are difficult to analyze and "turn off".