environment

Digital Waste

Natalie Behring has a photo essay: Inside the Digital Dump on the remains of our technology in the recent issue of Foreign Policy. Behring’s pictures are good and the theme/topic is familiar. Third world nations risking environmental poisoning from the digital hardware we no longer desire or can use.

The images come from the world’s biggest digital dumping ground located in Guiyu, China. Locals work for $2 per day sorting, disassembling, and pulverizing hundreds of tons of digital hardware. The purpose of their work is to get at the valuable gold and copper. Computer waste contains 17 times more gold than gold ore, 40 times more copper than copper ore. But the detritus also leaches chemicals and metals into local water supplies.

Natalie Behring

Call me cynical but I believe that the profits will move out of Guiyu while the environmental damage will remain there.

Posted on by mklang

Greener Apples

No need to be cynical or pessimistic about the effect of lobby campaigns or the power of collecting people online. Greenpeace launched an environmental campaign against Appleâ??s lack of environmental policy. On 2nd May Steve Jobs published a second public letter (the first was against DRM) listing environmental hazards connected with Apple computers and the steps Apple was taking to remedy the situation.

It is generally not Appleâ??s policy to trumpet our plans for the future; we tend to talk about the things we have just accomplished. Unfortunately this policy has left our customers, shareholders, employees and the industry in the dark about Appleâ??s desires and plans to become greener. Our stakeholders deserve and expect more from us, and theyâ??re right to do so. They want us to be a leader in this area, just as we are in the other areas of our business. So today weâ??re changing our policy.

This is a good first step towards taking Apple to the forefront of environmental concerns as well as its firm position as a design leader. This approach also shows that design and environmentalism are not incompatible.

Greenpeace has responded on their campaign site with the words “We are cheering!”…

It’s not everything we asked for.  Apple has declared a phase out of the worst chemicals in its product range, Brominated Fire Retardants (BFRs) and Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) by 2008. That beats Dell and other computer manufactures’ pledge to phase them out by 2009. Way to go Steve!

It’s nice to know that the machine of my choice has just made a little less guilty.

Posted on by mklang

Social Impact of the Web

If you happen to be in London on 25th May then you may want to attend the RSA special event Social Impact of the Web: Society, Government and the Internet. With speakers Cass Sunstein, Tom Steinberg, Andrew Chadwick, William Davies, Matthew Taylor, Bronwyn Kunhardt, Georgina Henry it promises to be a very interesting day (in addition to this the event is free). Unfortunately I will not be in London so I cannot attend (how annoying) I would very much have liked to have been there.

Here is the text from the advert:

How can new internet technology empower us to interact with each other in novel ways?

This conference will address this question by focusing on the political culture and norms that the internet has been instrumental in fostering, both in relation to centralised politics and more diffuse social and civic networks.

It will also look at the psychology of the internet â?? as we create virtual fully living worlds, lines may be crossed between what is real and unreal in our lives.

Virtual environments let people create their own digital identity with their own unique psychology. When online do we treat people differently, does the technology that we are using change how we would behave in the real world? If people create their own representation what does it say about them and what are the wider implications, social and political.

To book a place at this conference visit http://socialimpact.eventbrite.com/

Location: RSA, 8 John Adam Street, London WC2N 6EZ
Date: 25 May 2007
Time: 10.30am – 4.00pm

Posted on by mklang

Churches in Second Life

The Swedish state church is planning on establishing a parish in Second Life. Their rationale for doing this is that they want to be where people are and that they have been losing customers. The Swedish church is obviously not the first but it may be the first state church to establish itself in this virtual environment. Sheesh, the progressive church of today, huh.

Why would people go to church in second life if they don’t feel that it’s important enough to visit churches in real life?

(via Humaniorabloggen)

Posted on by mklang

Food for Fuel

Over at Owen’s Musings (via Memex 1.0) I read the following

I have just learned from DFIDâ??s Chief Economist, Tony Venables, that the grain required to fill a 25-gallon SUV gas tank with ethanol will feed one person for a year.

While I had not seen this nugget of information before I know that in Sweden it is cheaper to heat ones home by burning grain rather than oil. It may seem to be a bit naive of me but I do get upset when people heat their houses by burning grain since it is cheaper than oil.

OK – now that I have written this I am expecting to be set straight by Johan my resident environmentalist (and some time guilty conscious) . So Johan is the example correct, relevant and interesting?

Posted on by mklang

An Inconvenient Truth

The global warming documentary An Inconvenient Truth has not only got a powerful message but it has now also managed to win an Oscar. Naturally being a politician Al Gore must expect to see this bring new attacks. I came across this Gary Varvel cartoon which is a brilliant example of balancing ideology and strategy (more on this below but first the cartoon). Don’t get me wrong – An Inconvenient Truth is an important documentary and the recognition of an Oscar only helps to promote it’s important message on global warming.

On ideologies and strategies

A few days ago Stellan Vinthagen were discussing the problem of awareness, activism and the need to travel to meet people. The crunch of the dilemma is this:

Most activists are concerned about the environment (not only environmentalists). Yet to be able to carry out effective activism international cooperation is necessary. International cooperation requires travel (despite the Internet and its ilk). Therefore people who are concerned about the environment need to travel.

So how does one reconcile ones ideologies and strategies? In other words if the ideology is about making the world a better place (and travel has a negative impact on this – especially air travel), and the strategy requires international collaboration (which requires travel).

In addition to this is it worse to harm the environment intentionally or unintentionally? Causing intentional harm is most often seen as being far more wrong than unintentional harm (but not always).

Imagine two people (A and B) on a low-budget airplane bound for London. A is traveling to go shopping he/she is unaware of the effects of travel on the environment and is only vaguely aware of global warming. We do not know if A would care about the environment even if he/she was informed about the issues. B is traveling to an international meeting of environmental activists. He/she is greatly concerned about the effects of air travel on the environment but hopes that this meeting will provide an opportunity for more coordinated actions to bring about real changes to help the environment. A will also go shopping in his/her spare time in London.

A therefore is causing unintentional harm but traveling for frivolous reasons. B is causing intentional harm but hopes this is for a good cause. Is there a difference? Does the environment care about the intentions of its destroyers?

Stellan and I did not arrive at any real conclusions in our discussions we just recognized that it is a problem…

Posted on by mklang

Defence and Environment

What do the Minister of Defence and the Minister of the Environmnet have in common – besides politics? Well today I recieved a letter from the Minister of Defence thanking me for sending my PhD to him three months ago. The Minister of the Environment thanked me in January. Therefore they both have good manners. All the other ministers (including the Prime Minister) either have no manners, no staff or both – since they have not said thank you.

Actually since they were all part of a new cabinett selected close after the election and my thesis defence I sent all the newbies copies of my thesis  Disruptive Technology: Effects of Technology Regulation on Democracy. I didn’t expect a reply from any of them but it’s nice to see that at least two ministers are polite.

Posted on by mklang

Swedish Embassy on Second Life

The days here are long so there is not much time for extra reading but in todayâ??s edition of the Times of India there is an article about Sweden. Naturally (?) since Sweden is the exotic over here, so the reason why we rate an article is the strangeness factor.

Sweden has announced that they will establish an embassy in the virtual environment â??Second Lifeâ??. Reading the article closer it is not really the Swedish Foreign Office that will create an embassy but rather the Swedish Institute which is involved in marketing Sweden to the world. They have a good tourist site with lots of information about, and experiences of Sweden.

Someone has managed to sell in this idea to his/her boss but it does feel kind of sad that the Swedish marketing arm is attempting to waste time and energy marketing a physical country in a virtual environment. This is the kind of project that gets everyone excited but with hindsight nobody wants to admit they liked the idea.

Posted on by mklang

Andrew "Da-Man" Murray

Can you believe that I almost forgot to tell everyone about it? My friend Andrew has just published his first solo work! Too cool. Andrew’s book is called “The Regulation of Cyberspace: Control in the online environment” and is an excellent mix of academia, anecdote, politics, law, raw power and technology.

He cites examples as varied as the online coffee pot at Cambridge to the Live8 ebay scandals of 2005, draws from academic fields of information technology, law, philosophy and physics. His point? Basically the world of Internet regulation is much more complex than we care to accept. Regulation is neither hierarchical nor a question of social practice therefore we must bravely accept this and come to terms with the uncertainty of the situation…

Andrew D. Murray – The Regulation of Cyberspace is going to be influential and long lived. Get it from Amazon here!

Posted on by mklang

Postdocs at Humlab

Why not spend an exotic year at Humlab in Umeå (North Sweden)? They are offering Postdocs. Unfortunately I am not qualified since I have a Swedish PhD.

You are expected to have a PhD degree in a humanities discipline from an international (non-Swedish) university. You may not have been employed by Umeå University or had a postdoctoral scholarship at the university. The intention is to have all postdoctoral positions affiliated both with HUMlab and an appropriate department at the Humanities faculty. We are looking for applicants with documented interest in any of the four research areas, and a willingness to engage with digital humanities more broadly. You need to have excellent written and oral proficiency in English. HUMlab is a lively and convivial studio space with a wide variety of activities, research, technologies and cross-disciplinary interaction. It is expected that you will contribute to such an environment and you also share our interest in working with traditional humanities disciplines and other related areas. Furthermore you will be expected to participate actively in any of the four research groups associated with the initiative. Therefore you will need to live in Umeå during the post doc period.

This would definately be an exotic experience doing research among the cool people up north.
More info.

Posted on by mklang