The BBC published a story the other day on the push towards shorter and slimmer books, as a potential way for publishers to save money and reduce their climate impact. According to a 2021 study, a single paperback book accounts for around 1 kilogram of carbon dioxide equivalent, which is “a climate impact similar to that of watching 6 hours of TV.” This makes paperbacks a bit less Earth friendly than e-books, at scale:
E-readers are slightly better than paper books, as long as you use them many times. … You have to read the equivalent of at least 36 paperback books (bought new, then recycled) in e-book format before the paper saving outweighs the emissions embodied in the device.”
Overall, for the 767 million paperbacks sold in the US in 2023, “this is equivalent to the electricity use of more than 150,000 homes for a year.”
The numbers are eye-popping and I’m glad to hear that there’s a movement to examine how the design, production, and transport of books are impacting the planet, but I think this framing is eliding and sidestepping some broader conversations. This BBC story implies that a lot of these publishing experiments with thinner paper, shorter books, and more compact typefaces are done with an eye towards the planet’s well-being, but I’m sure it’s not a coincidence that all of these moves will also reduce production cost and increase profit.
If it’s sincere, I’m excited to see publishing take environmental impacts seriously! But let’s really go for it: Using recycled paper, print-on-demand to reduce stock, and working with local printers to reduce transport will help. Allowing employees to work from home can have positive impacts on carbon footprint.
But most of all, rethink using environmentally disastrous AI! The Washington Post crunched the numbers on the immense amount of water and power that AI chatbots use, and found that generating 100 words using GPT-4 “requires 0.14 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity, equal to powering 14 LED light bulbs for 1 hour” and “519 milliliters of water, a little more than than 1 bottle.” Seems bad!
I want to be clear that I want all corporations, publishers included, to get much more serious about their emissions and their impact, but I would like to seem them be more broad-minded in their climate impact audits. I’m especially dubious if this is going to start trickling down to an editorial push for shorter books.
It’s one thing for publishers to try and reduce their impact by embracing shorter books on thinner paper, but I question the real motivation if it’s happening at the same that they’re shelling out for water- and power-guzzling generative text programs.
