Information technology and carbon footprint

This chart from the consulting firm McKinsey & Co. is intriguing. The firm notes that computers, data storage, and communications devices are behind a rapid rise in greenhouse gas emissions. It estimates these information technologies could generate as much as 3% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. Yetovre the same time period the efficincies gained from using information and communications technologies could eliminate five times the greenhouse gases emitted. Technology as problem and solution.

This chart illustrates the potential trade-off: