Consumers vs. Tech Companies in the fight against climate change

Technology started impacting people’s day-to-day life in the 1800s to help them power not only their homes but their businesses as well. This improved their lives in many ways, including productivity, entertainment, and safety. Since its beginning, it has worked for the consumers and allowed them to have a much easier life.

What we barely realized then as our lives got easier, is that the technology we used also led to more carbon emissions, and today we’re facing what seems to be an irreversible climate change crisis. Many industries contribute to this crisis like the manufacturing, retail industry, and significantly, the tech industry. Right now though, it would seem that STEM industries are the primary sectors developing sustainable solutions in the long run.

Every day there are new developments that aim to combat climate change using technology as a tool to measure data, reduce negative impact and move to a greener market. The problem isn’t the lack of research and development regarding the environment, it’s that most of these technologies are in earlier stages of testing and less likely to be escalated to the mass market in the short run. This leaves most of the responsibility of reducing the climate crisis to consumers.

Today as humans we’re dependent on different technologies to keep up with our daily lives, personal and professional. It has shaped our existence and the way we go through with it, only talking about the importance of phones would take us hours. And it is with these tiny actions that the tech makes our lives better but also has a significant impact on the environment.

One clear example is the transportation sector, making mobilization easier but also, according to the center for biological diversity, only in the US, this sector is responsible for about a third of the country’s climate change emissions. So, there’s the tiny action of taking the bus or a car somewhere and if you multiply that by the millions of people that do it every day, it becomes a massive problem.

Or let’s talk about another important contributor to carbon emissions: digital technologies. It’s crucial to start being conscious of the, even if essential, activities we do every day that have environmental repercussions. Digital technologies are responsible for 4% of greenhouse gas emissions and the internet emits 1.6 billion annual tons of greenhouse gas emissions.

But the responsibility of climate change reduction shouldn’t be pinned up to consumers, who, at least the majority of them, are only trying to live their day-to-day life easier. Where I’m going with this is that companies can’t assume climate change is only on the consumers’ hands while they represent huge amounts of carbon emissions daily, and no, providing tools to recycle batteries isn’t even 10% of the work that they could be doing.

For example, while we’re doing this, Elon Musk is spending millions of company dollars going to the moon and while he does that, the whole world applauds him for his technological advancements. And it’s not only about the money, SpaceX testing headquarters are close to the Lower Rio Grande Valley national wildlife refuge, which endangers the more than 200 species that habit this land.

This is only one example of the many companies in their efforts to provide innovations for the 1%, like space tourism, risk other factors that should be a priority like the environment. So is it worth it to put all these resources into building something massive that is barely scalable only for the enjoyment of a few? Well, if the few pay you 55 million dollars for one ticket maybe. Taking the risk of never doing enough to stop climate change.

We could start demanding companies to provide short-term and scalable solutions for climate change before dreaming of colonizing space, but the questions still end up being more than the answers to this, mostly ethically-driven dilemma. Am I, as a responsible consumer doing enough to fight big companies’ environmentally questionable initiatives? Or, are big companies’ climate actions enough? How scalable in the short run are these technologies? Is it a little too late?