Author Lotfi Belkhir Associate Professor & Chair of Eco-Entrepreneurship, McMaster University Languages Bahasa Indonesia English Academic rigor, journalistic flair How smartphones are heating up the planet March 25, 2018 5.03pm EDT When we think about climate change, the main sources of carbon emissions that come to mind for most of us are heavy industries like petroleum, mining and transportation. Rarely do we point the finger at computer technologies. In fact, many experts view the cyber-world of information and computer technologies (ICT) as our potential saviour, replacing many of our physical activities with a lower- carbon virtual alternative. That is not what our study, recently published in the Journal of Cleaner Production, suggests. Having conducted a meticulous and fairly exhaustive inventory of the contribution of ICT —including devices like PCs, laptops, monitors, smartphones and tablets — and infrastructure like data centres and communication networks, we found that the relative contribution of ICT to the total global footprint is expected to grow from about one per cent in 2007 to 3.5 per cent by 2020 and reaching 14 per cent by 2040. That’s more than half the relative contribution of the entire transportation sector worldwide. Another disconcerting finding is that all this extraordinary growth is mostly incremental, essentially shattering the hope that ICT will help reduce the global carbon footprint by substituting physical activities with their virtual counterparts. Smart phones are rarely recycled and that’s just one reason tech devices are increasing our carbon footprints. Here Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide marketing, is seen in 2016 talking about new iPhones. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez, File) March 25, 2018 5.03pm EDT How smartphones are heating up the planet   How smartphones are heating up the planet https://theconversation.com/how-smartphones-are-heating-up-the-... 1 of 3 7/24/18 11:53 AM The impact of smartphones Perhaps the most surprising result of our study was the disproportionate contribution of smartphones relative to the overall ICT footprint. We found that the relative emissions share of smartphones is expected to grow from four per cent in 2010 to 11 per cent by 2020, dwarfing the individual contributions of PCs, laptops and computer displays. In absolute values, emissions caused by smartphones will jump from 17 to 125 megatons of CO2 equivalent per year (Mt-CO2e/yr) in that time span, or a 730 per cent growth. The lion’s share of this footprint (85 to 95 per cent) will be caused not by the use of the device, but rather by its production. That includes, in addition to the manufacturing energy, the energy for material mining for gold and the so-called rare-earth elements like yttrium, lanthanium and several others that today are almost exclusively available only from China. Another guilty participant in this excessive carbon footprint .

1. Author
Lotfi Belkhir
Associate Professor & Chair of
Eco-Entrepreneurship, McMaster
University
Languages
Bahasa Indonesia
English
Academic rigor, journalistic flair
How smartphones are heating up the planet
March 25, 2018 5.03pm EDT
When we think about climate change, the main sources of
carbon emissions that come to
mind for most of us are heavy industries like petroleum, mining
and transportation.
Rarely do we point the finger at computer technologies.
In fact, many experts view the cyber-world of information and
computer technologies
(ICT) as our potential saviour, replacing many of our physical
activities with a lower-
carbon virtual alternative.

2. That is not what our study, recently published in the Journal of
Cleaner Production,
suggests.
Having conducted a meticulous and fairly exhaustive inventory
of the contribution of ICT
—including devices like PCs, laptops, monitors, smartphones
and tablets — and
infrastructure like data centres and communication networks, we
found that the relative
contribution of ICT to the total global footprint is expected to
grow from about one per cent
in 2007 to 3.5 per cent by 2020 and reaching 14 per cent by
2040.
That’s more than half the relative contribution of the entire
transportation sector worldwide.
Another disconcerting finding is that all this extraordinary
growth is mostly incremental, essentially
shattering the hope that ICT will help reduce the global carbon
footprint by substituting physical
activities with their virtual counterparts.
Smart phones are rarely recycled and that’s just one reason tech
devices are increasing our carbon footprints. Here Phil Schiller,
Apple’s senior vice
president of worldwide marketing, is seen in 2016 talking about

3. new iPhones. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez, File)
March 25, 2018 5.03pm EDT
How smartphones are heating up the planet
How smartphones are heating up the planet
https://theconversation.com/how-smartphones-are-heating-up-
the-...
1 of 3 7/24/18 11:53 AM
The impact of smartphones
Perhaps the most surprising result of our study was the
disproportionate contribution of smartphones
relative to the overall ICT footprint.
We found that the relative emissions share of smartphones is
expected to grow from four per cent in
2010 to 11 per cent by 2020, dwarfing the individual
contributions of PCs, laptops and computer
displays.
In absolute values, emissions caused by smartphones will jump
from 17 to 125 megatons of CO2
equivalent per year (Mt-CO2e/yr) in that time span, or a 730 per
cent growth.

4. The lion’s share of this footprint (85 to 95 per cent) will be
caused not by the use of the device, but
rather by its production. That includes, in addition to the
manufacturing energy, the energy for
material mining for gold and the so-called rare-earth elements
like yttrium, lanthanium and several
others that today are almost exclusively available only from
China.
Another guilty participant in this excessive carbon footprint are
the
phone plans that encourage users to get a new smartphone every
two
years. That accelerates the rate at which older models become
obsolete
and leads to an extraordinary and unnecessary amount of waste.
These findings pertain to the device side.
Every text, download, email uses server energy
On the infrastructure side, we predict the combined footprint of
data
centres and communications networks will grow from 215
megatons of
C02 equivalent a year (Mt-CO2e/yr) in 2007 to 764 MtCO2-e/yr
by

5. 2020, with data centres accounting for about two thirds of the
total contribution.
For comparison purposes, the entire carbon footprint of
Canada was about 730 MtCO2-e in 2016 and is expected to
decrease by 2020.
The growth in smartphones and data centres aren’t
unrelated.
Indeed, it’s the dizzying growth in mobile communications
that’s largely driving the pace for data centres. For every text
message, video download, photo
exchange, email or chat, there’s a 24/7 power-hungry server in
some data centre that’s making it
happen.
Want to help combat climate change? Stop replacing your
phone every two years. (Shutterstock)
Data centres are an increasing source of
carbon emissions. (Shutterstock)
How smartphones are heating up the planet
https://theconversation.com/how-smartphones-are-heating-up-
the-...
2 of 3 7/24/18 11:53 AM

6. Climate change Mobile phones Smartphones Carbon footprint
Technology Greenhouse gas emissions
It’s the energy consumption that we don’t see.
Software companies spur growth
Finally, and perhaps the most ironic aspect of all this, is that
it’s software that is driving the overall
growth in ICT as a whole, devices and infrastructure included.
Software companies like Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft
and Yahoo boast some of the largest
data centres in the world. The rise in dominance of the mobile
operating systems, namely Apple’s iOS
and Google’s Android, along with the millions of mobile
applications that are built on top of those
platforms, has spawned the mobile communication age.
The incredible —as well as unsustainable— growth in the
emission footprint of all this hardware is
there for only one purpose: To support and serve the software
universe.
In other words, while it’s the hardware that does all the dirty
work, it’s the software that’s calling all
the shots.

7. The way out?
At the societal level, we must demand that all data centres run
exclusively on renewable energy.
At the individual level: Hold on to your smartphone for as long
as you can, and when you do upgrade,
make sure you recycle your old one. Sadly, only one per cent of
smartphones are being recycled today.
How smartphones are heating up the planet
https://theconversation.com/how-smartphones-are-heating-up-
the-...
3 of 3 7/24/18 11:53 AM
Title
ABC/123 Version X
1
Organizing Ideas Worksheet
ENG/100 Version 3
5
University of Phoenix Material
Organizing Ideas Worksheet
Step 1 – Locating relevant information
As part of an academic writing process, it is important to use

8. scholarly articles to support your own thoughts about a topic.
When you use those sources in your writing, you must record
specific information about the articles you use in your topic
discussion. Recording this information ensures you are prepared
to give credit to the authors of those articles.
This week, you use the University Library to find two scholarly
articles related to the broad topic, narrowed idea, and research
question you selected in Week 1. In the academic databases
available in our online library, the source information for
articles is provided in the indexing details located toward the
bottom of the article.
Review the below example of indexing details. The six pieces of
source information for your articles you will need to record for
this assignment (title, author, publication title, publication date,
document URL or DOI, and database) are numbered and boxed
in red. Eventually, you will need to record the issue number
and/or volume number as well as the page numbers the on which
the articles appear to complete the reference page citations in
your essay.
Search for at least two articles in the University Library that are
relevant to your topic. Once you have decided on the articles
you want to use for your essay, locate the indexing details.
Complete the following template using the indexing details for
the two articles you selected. Include a 3- or 4-sentence
description of how each article relates to your topic and
research question.
Article #1:
Author(s) names:
Article title:

9. Date written or published:
Journal or publication title:
Issue number and/or volume number (if provided):
Page numbers (if provided):
Database name:
URL (web address) or doi number:
Provide a 3- or 4-sentence description of how the article relates
to your topic and research question:
Article #2:
Author(s) names:
Article title:
Date written or published:
Journal or publication title:
Issue number and/or volume number (if provided):
Page numbers (if provided):
Database name:
URL (web address) or doi number:
Provide a 3- or 4-sentence description of how the article relates

10. to your topic and research question:
Step 2 – Research question responses
Use the research question you selected in Week 1 to identify
three related perspectives from the articles that you identified in
Step 1 of this worksheet. These perspectives should
meaningfully respond to the research question you selected.
Review the example below for additional guidance:
Example Research Question: What are three waysvideo games
can help young players develop some important skills?
Example of Three Responses:
1. Develop academic skills in literacy and math.
2. Help young players develop decision-making and logic skills.
3. Help young players develop social skills.
Complete the template below using the research question you
selected in Week 1 and the information from the articles you
selected in Step 1.
Your research question:
Three responses to your research question (from the articles
selected):
1.
2.
3.

11. Step 3 – Thesis Statement
Now that you have selected a research question, located
relevant scholarly information, and identified responses to the
research question, you are ready to create a thesis statement.
A thesis statement incorporates the responses to the research
question, and it can be seen as the ‘forecast’ of the main ideas
that will be presented in the essay. Below is an example of a
properly written thesis statement.
Example Research Question: What are three waysvideo games
can help young players develop some important skills?
Example of Three Responses:
1. Develop academic skills in literacy and math.
2. Help young players develop decision-making and logic skills.
3. Help young players develop social skills.
Example Thesis Statement: Video games help young players
develop academic, thinking, and social skills.
Write your thesis statement in the box below using the
information from Step 2.
Your thesis statement:
Step 4 – Topic sentences
As mentioned above, a thesis statement is a ‘forecast’ of the
main ideas in the essay. Topic sentences at the beginning of
each body paragraph in the essay introduce the main idea
discussed in that paragraph and incorporate the responses to the
research question.

12. In this step, you use the results from Steps 2 and 3 to develop
three topic sentences. Review the example below of topic
sentences that were developed from the video game idea.
Example Research Question: What are three waysvideo games
can help young players develop some important skills?
Example of Three Responses:
1. Develop academic skills in literacy and math.
2. Help young players develop decision-making and logic skills.
3. Help young players develop social skills.
Example Thesis Statement: Video games help young players
develop academic, thinking, and social skills.
Example of Three Topic Sentences:
1. One way video games can help young players is through the
development of academic skills.
2. Video games can also aid in developing thinking skills in
younger players.
3. Finally, video games can assist younger players in developing
social skills.
Write your three topic sentences in the template below using
information from your responses to the research question and
your thesis statement.
Three topic sentences:
1.
2.
3.
* In Week 3, you will use the topic sentences you have created
here to further develop your essay by creating body paragraphs
with additional details for each main idea.

13. Copyright © XXXX by University of Phoenix. All rights
reserved.
Copyright © 2018 by University of Phoenix. All rights reserved.
Author
Josh Lepawsky
Associate Professor of Geography,
Memorial University of Newfoundland
Academic rigor, journalistic flair
Almost everything you know about e-waste is wrong
May 15, 2018 6.58pm EDT
Many of us think we know what electronic waste is because we
wonder what to do with
devices we no longer want or need.
It’s the old cellphone and its charger stuffed in the drawer.
It’s that old laptop, monitor or printer packed behind the door
or in the basement.
It’s also all those things we throw out that are exported
overseas, and picked over by
people who are either desperate for work, despite the health and
environmental risks, or
at the forefront of a new green economy, depending on the
narrative you hear.

14. There’s more to e-waste than the discarded monitors, cell
phones and other electronics. (Shutterstock)
May 15, 2018 6.58pm EDT
Almost everything you know about e-waste is wrong
Almost everything you know about e-waste is wrong
https://theconversation.com/almost-everything-you-know-about-
e...
1 of 5 7/24/18 12:14 PM
But it is far more than all of that.
Waste arises ubiquitously, but unevenly, throughout the lives of
electronics, not only when users
discard their devices. No amount of post-consumer recycling
can recoup the waste generated before
consumers purchase their devices.
Waste from mining
Data on waste generation typically separate producer wastes,
such as those from mining, and
consumer wastes such as those from households. But there are
problems with such division.
It makes the mistake of thinking producer waste and consumer
waste are two separate things instead

15. of flip sides of the same coin in industrial systems. It also
makes the mistake of presuming consumers
have much in the way of meaningful choice in what their
electronics are made of.
Electronics contain a wide variety of materials. One important
example is copper. The electronics
industry is the second-largest consumer of copper. Only the
building and construction sector uses
more.
About 30 per cent of world copper consumption is satisfied
from recycling copper scrap. The rest
needs to be mined. A United States Geological Survey (USGS)
study claims that for every kilogram of
copper mined, at least 210 kilograms of mine waste arise.
Domestic e-waste generated per country (in kilotons) in 2016.
Data from Global E-Waste Monitor 2017. Josh Lepawsky
A panoramic view of Chuquicamata, a copper mine in Chile. It
is one of the world’s largest open-pit copper mines,
measuring 4.5 kilometres long, 3.5 kilometres wide and 850
metres deep. (Diego Delso/Wikimedia), CC BY-SA
Almost everything you know about e-waste is wrong
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e...
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16. The same study reports that one of the largest copper mines in
the world, Chuquicamata in Chile,
generates a daily average of more than 298,000 metric tons of
mine waste.
At that rate, it only needs to operate for about 12 hours before it
generates as much mine waste by
weight as Chile does e-waste in a year. After a little over 48
days of operation, the Chuquicamata mine
generates about the same amount of mine waste by weight as the
total annual e-waste arising in
China and the United States combined.
Waste from manufacturing
Manufacturing digital devices entails substantial tonnages of
discards that, by weight, far exceed what
consumers dispose of as e-waste. For example, in 2014, about
3.1 million metric tons of e-waste was
collected from households in the European Union. Yet five
times more waste, 16.2 million metric tons,
arose from electronics manufacturing within the EU.
This means that even if all household e-waste collected in the
EU is recycled, waste from

17. manufacturing electronics in the same region far outstrips the
scale of household e-waste.
Data from manufacturers of phones, laptops, desktops and
tablets show that in most cases the CO₂
released over a device’s lifetime predominantly occurs during
production, before consumers buy their
devices.
Read more: How smartphones are heating up the planet
Similarly, the manufacture of flat panel displays, like those that
go into televisions and computer
monitors, releases fluorinated greenhouse gases (F-GHGs),
some of the most powerful and persistent
of the heat-trapping emissions.
Almost everything you know about e-waste is wrong
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e...
3 of 5 7/24/18 12:14 PM
Large volumes of other chemicals used in device manufacturing
also don’t make it into the final
device. The volume of these chemicals may be four times
greater than what is included in the product
itself.

18. Some of these chemicals are released into the environment, and
make their way into workers’ bodies.
Waste from use
Once they’re in use, it can be tricky to measure the
environmental impact of energy use by electronics.
The electricity the device uses may be generated by coal, hydro
or solar power plants. But it’s clear
that the environmental impact of cyberspace is anything but
“virtual.”
Minting a new bitcoin, for example, can produce seven to 12
tonnes of CO₂ per coin. Researchers
estimate that electricity use for electronics in businesses and
homes are responsible for about two per
cent of total global greenhouse gas emissions. By 2040 those
emissions could account for six to 14 per
cent of total global greenhouse gas releases.
Fixing the e-waste issue
Post-consumer recycling of electronics will never be enough,
we need to be able to repair — and
upgrade — the devices we already have, if we are to slow our
production of e-waste.
Innovative initiatives that facilitate reuse and repair while also
finding ways to offset e-waste that
arises do exist. More are needed.

19. In the U.S., the Repair Association is doing the hard work of
advocating for consumers to have the
right to repair the devices they purchase by enshrining those
rights into law. That said, an e-waste
recycler in California now faces a 15-month prison sentence and
a US$50,000 fine in his efforts to
extend the lives of computers.
The automobile, food and pharmaceutical industries have to
show their products meet certain safety
standards before they are put on the market. Why not demand
the same of the electronics industry?
Global emissions of fluorinated greenhouse gases from flat
panel display manufacturing, including projections under
moderate growth and high growth scenarios. U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency
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e...
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Climate change Mining Waste Greenhouse gases Recycling
Electronics consumer electronics E-waste
Greenhouse gas emissions

20. Requiring electronics manufacturers to make products that are
materially safer, durable and
repairable would be important steps in mitigating waste from
electronics throughout their life cycle in
ways that post-consumer recycling on its own will never
achieve.
Almost everything you know about e-waste is wrong
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e...
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