Author: Joshua M. Pearce, John M. Thompson Chair in Information Technology and Innovation and Professor, Western University

The use of information technology (IT) has significant environmental and social impacts, including human mortality from climate change. One striking example is the carbon emissions and impacts associated with digital communication. To quantify the human cost of carbon-emitting technology, researchers use the 1,000-ton rule that estimates that for every 1,000 tons of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere, one person dies prematurely. This rule is derived from the following calculation: burning one trillion ton of fossil carbon is likely to cause 2 C of anthropogenic global warming, which in turn is likely to cause about one billion premature deaths spread…