Mastodon MigrationSo in addition to cluttering up low earth orbit, wrecking terrestrial astronomy, creating the potential for a Kessler Syndrome cascade which could close access to space, and creating a national security nightmare, Starlink internet access is a climate catastrophe using up to 30 times more carbon footprint per internet subscriber than land based internet.
̶s̶e̶t̶h̶ ̶ ̶Are you going to be the one to tell people who live in the Solomons or Ethiopia or rural Oklahoma that they can't have internet because the "carbon footprint" is too big?
Starlink and services like it exist because for a lot of people there aren't other options. And when there are, they can be heavily censored.
So yeah, we should make our satellites less reflective, clean up light pollution, and cut CO₂.
But let's keep the internet on for everyone while we do that, ok?
Michael Busch@seth @mastodonmigration Starlink cannot and is not designed to provide many people with internet access - it can't handle the bandwidth. It is designed to provide a small number of users slightly lower latency at a steep financial premium, along with the environmental harm it does.
Don't believe the hype.
And to actually get people internet access; advocate for rolling out fiber optics and local wireless.
Didzis 🚂@michael_w_busch @mastodonmigration @seth I would add another and potentially even more important argument — using starlink leaves one vulnerable to the decisions of one person we all know too well… he would never switch it off on a whim. Or, wait…
@dzedus @mastodonmigration Starlink got a lot of publicity when the Hoh Tribe purchased a service contract.
But more quietly, the Hoh Tribe has been building out community-owned fiber optic internet connections that they control.
Explicitly so they do not need to keep relying on Starlink.