The Environmental Cost of Internet Porn

So many people watch porn online that the industry’s carbon footprint might be worse now that it was in the days of DVDs and magazines

‘Since the turn of the century, the pornography industry has experienced two intense hikes in popularity. In the early 2000s, broadband enabled higher download speeds. Then, in 2008, the advent of so-called tube sites allowed users to watch clips for free, like people watch videos on YouTube. Adam Grayson, the chief financial officer of the adult company Evil Angel, calls the latter hike “the great mushroom-cloud porn explosion of 2008.”’

This analogy to an atomic bomb is, perhaps surprisingly not limited to the affect on the habits and character of its watchers. “The internet could allow people to spend so much time looking at porn that it’s actually worse for the environment.”

Read the full article in the Atlantic