Facing it

My workplace which is addicted to meetings has been thankfully lenient during this period of isolation and Zoom on the matter of whether cameras are required to be on during them.  Consequently, for this entire year, I have kept my camera off.  I'm in a minority.  The only person  in the department who has ever made a federal case out of my visage being uniquely represented  among my colleagues by the white lettering of my name in a field of black is the head of it, to whom I do not report directly.  But while he isn't subtle about what he'd prefer me to do, he clearly does not feel empowered to press me on my recalcitrance, let alone to make beaming my git in meetings with him a requirement.  I am prepared to give a technical reason for my waywardness: I remote to a desktop at the office that does not have a camera.  This is a fudge, however, because I do not use that desktop to connect to Zoom meetings.  The laptop that I connect to my work desktop with, which is also the one I use to connect to meetings, does have a fully functional camera, but my actual literal desktop is small and to make room for my over-sized monitor and keyboard, I keep that laptop closed.  But the real reason I don't turn the camera on is shallow: I am vain.  

More to the point, I know what I look like and I don't approve of it.  Sometimes when I am forced to look in the mirror (which is as little as possible) I occasionally see a face that I think I could live with perhaps.  But then I see a photograph and the reality hits me that a mirror is a liar.  I can't do anything about that in public, but in Zoom, it's easily solved.  And apparently in this modern neoliberal capitalistic age, there's nothing a self-respecting corporate executive can do about that other than apply teasing pressure.  Oh I suppose in the long run I could find myself getting overlooked for projects dear to the Executive's heart; or perhaps when the time comes for bonuses and promotions above the annual cost of living adjustment I could find myself shuffled to the bottom of the pile.  That's a small price to pay for fewer meetings with the Executive!  

I realize there are advantages to being invisible that my colleagues cannot avail themselves of.  While they are sitting stone-faced before the world, forced to appear engaged, presentable and alert, I am able to scratch, paw, poke, prod, yawn, roll my eyes, smirk, scoff and sneer as I please.  If only Jeffrey Toobin--poor libidinous bastard!-- had been aware of this option he might still have a career instead of a second life as the poster child of COVID era ignominy.  

It's not like I'm gawking at my colleagues while depriving them of my own appearance, by the way.  Unless I'm the topic of the meeting or the moment, I'm usually reading emails or double tasking with the zoom window minimized anyway.  Can any of the face beamers do that?

I recently learned thanks to researchers at Purdue and MIT however that there's a better reason for me to keep my camera off.  The future of the planet.  

Just one hour of videoconferencing or streaming, for example, emits 150-1,000 grams of carbon dioxide (a gallon of gasoline burned from a car emits about 8,887 grams), requires 2-12 liters of water and demands a land area adding up to about the size of an iPad Mini.  

But leaving your camera off during a web call can reduce these footprints by 96%. Streaming content in standard definition rather than in high definition while using apps such as Netflix or Hulu also could bring an 86% reduction, the researchers estimated.

 To frame it in the aggregate:

A number of countries have reported at least a 20% increase in internet traffic since March [2020]. If the trend continues through the end of 2021, this increased internet use alone would require a forest of about 71,600 square miles -- twice the land area of Indiana -- to sequester the emitted carbon, the study found.

The additional water needed in the processing and transmission of data would also be enough to fill more than 300,000 Olympic-size swimming pools, while the resulting land footprint would be about equal to the size of Los Angeles.

Camera on, Planet Killer?  I think not!