Gerry McGovern starts this book by determining how many trees we need to plant to offset some of the CO2 emissions produced by different activities.

As it starts to enumerate the different activities, the amount they produce, and the number of trees required, you quickly realize that we don’t even have that many trees.

That is something that becomes visible in the book, the fact that we’re living on borrowed time when it comes to pollution.

The book wants to show us how much of an influence digital has in accelerating pollution and creating a snowball effect because everything is fast, instant, and convenient.

Behind all these advantages, lies the actual truth that all of this needs to be powered, all the devices need to be produced, all the free returns on your shopping spree are killing trees just to get that thing to your door only for you to send it back because it’s the wrong color.

Digital is physical. Every byte is supported by an atom. Every single action in digital costs the Earth energy. Turn the electricity off and you turn digital off.

Around 90% of data is never accessed three months after it is first stored, according to Tech Target. 80% of all digital data is never accessed or used again after it is stored, according to a 2018 report by Active Archive.

We are the crap-producing society.

Cheap storage combined with cheap processing power made the World Wide Web the World Wide Waste.

Cheap storage and computing power are a blessing and a curse. It has made us hoard a lot of things that are never going to be used again, probably never been looked at.

More people have been on top of Mount Everest than have been to the 10th page of search results. Parents warn their children: “Don’t go beyond the first page of search results.”

Cut the crap. Delete at leat 80%. Right now, crap, useless data is destroying organizational efficiency.

I can relate to this as I’m actively trying to clean my photo gallery.

When I’m visiting, I take my camera with me. Being a digital camera, you snap a picture of everything. Who knows, maybe it is something interesting or cool looking. It doesn’t cost me anything to trigger the shutter one more time.

Which is fine, I prefer to take more pictures and have options. The problem is that I actually have to put in the effort and delete them when I get home. Usually, from 500 pictures taken, about 200-250 are deleted when I first review them, and when editing, another 50 probably go away.

The end result, sometimes, is still 100 pictures too many.

I guess this is something that comes with time and experience. Probably after 5 more years of taking photos, I can actually select the right ones before even pushing the shutter button.

Let me know if you’d like help tightening the flow or making it more expressive.

On another level, these managers are technology groupies. They totally bought into the magical thinking that if they buy the “right” technology, it will solve everything, and that the biggest problem in the modern organization is - wait for it - people.

To them, agile software design isn’t about making better, simpler software, Agile is instead another way to cut corners and save costs.

Yes! And it’s even more prominent with the use of AI in today’s age.

It’s about the right AI agent, the right AI tool, productivity, productivity, productivity. Just moving tasks up and down for KPIs.

A huge amount of pollution was released making the phone in your hand and the computer on your table. Try to get the maximum possible use out of it. It’s greener to use than to buy new. And when you buy, buy for quality, buy things that will last. Cheap costs the Earth. There’s nothing worse for the planet than throwaway digital devices.

I’m glad that I have this approach by default.

My phone is going to get used until it runs into the ground. I even bought it used, I had no desire for a new flashy device. When the time comes and it’s going to die, it will be replaced. I’m not expecting it to be anytime soon.

And I do try to use my devices as much as possible.

I finally changed my laptop after 6 years, because I needed something a bit more powerful for work. But the old one is not going in the trash, it will be handed down to someone else. It’s still more than capable for daily tasks.

Can you not go to the bathroom without using your phone?

I mean… can you? Stop shaming me!

They say a picture paints a thousand words but sometimes it’s a thousand words of crap.

True.

Think of all the media libraries, photo stocks, that have millions of images in there, for every useless thing. Just sitting there, wasting space.

Video is even worse, with so many hours of material uploaded and hosted on YouTube and TikTok that there is no way for anyone to consume even a fraction of it. Sitting there, idling and wasting resources.

The closer something is to you, the less energy is consumed and the less waste is created. If you truly love it, download it. Pay for it.

The book is not only about digital content. It’s about how digital has made us consume much more than we need, having the desire for instant gratification, instant delivery, at the cost of polluting more and more.

Buying local helps reduce the CO2 footprint. This includes clothes, groceries, construction materials, etc. You need less energy to move them around, and there is a better chance of getting something of higher quality that will last you longer compared to the fast fashion items that get thrown away a few months after the first use.

Thanks, all influencers that are doing fast fashion outfit checks in clothes that are thrown away the moment the camera is closed. /s

What do you get when you cross a fox with a chicken? You get a fox, because the fox eats the chicken.

I just liked this quote and wanted to save it somewhere.

This is ironic because advertising is more and more targeted at the poor, since better-educated and better-off people have become more immune to ads. As economics professor Scott Galloway puts it, “Advertising is a tax the poor and technologically illiterate pay.”

Don’t feed the ads. Don’t click on the ad. Find the organic search result and click on it. Organic is better. Find out what you truly value. Pay for it.

Basically, get an adblocker, do not click the ads. Ideally, you don’t want them at all. Ads are more intrusive now than ever, with all the tracking, cookies that are shared between multiple sites so they can better track your preferences, but they are also a major bloatware on most sites.

We are burning energy for ads that are mining your personal info, in order to sell you a $2 Temu/Shein/AliExpress item.

With digital, everyone is racing faster. To where? To the bottom, often.

And it’s not sustainable in any way, shape, or form.

Pay for value. Buy quality. Create quality. Value yourself more. Keep it local. Avoid big brands. Keep an eye on AI.

Delete. Don’t feed the ads. Avoid packaging. Reuse. Share. Turn off.

Light is better. Make digital weight visible. Minimum data. Minimum power. Burn your own energy.

Wait. Slow down. Think.