ICS 131: Social Analysis of Computerization

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ICS 131 Social Analysis of Computerization

• Lecture 13
• Environmental Impacts
• of Computing

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Short Quiz

• Please take one of the pieces of paper being
  handed out.

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Short Quiz

• Q1 Amanda Cravens discusses the impact of two
  technologies that altered humans relationships
  with the ecosystems in which they live. Name
  one.
• Q2 Amanda Cravens is (or was, at the time she
  wrote this article)
• A) a professor.
• B) a student.
• C) a journalist.
• D) a corporate executive.
• Name and ID at the top, please.

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Announcements

• Short office hours today - 330-430

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Second Long Paper Assignment

• Relationship between computing technologies and
  environmental issues.
• Choose one environmental issue, present argument
  about how technological change might address that
  issue.
• Draft due Thursday, May 25
• Final due Thursday, June 8

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Introduction

• Vibeke Sorensen
• Digital artist
• Professor at ASU
• One of the inspirations for me getting into
  computer graphics

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Key Idea

• Computational technologies can impact
  environmental issues, both positively and
  negatively.

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iPods Dirty Secret
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The Sixth Extinctionby Leaky and Lewin (1995)

• Our planet has been shaken by five major
  extinctions in the four billion year history of
  life. So what is the Sixth Extinction? When is
  it coming? And what is its cause? "It's the next
  annihilation of vast numbers of species. It is
  happening now, and we, the human race, are its
  cause," explains Dr. Richard Leakey, the world's
  most famous paleoanthropologist. Every year,
  between 17,000 and 100,000 species vanish from
  our planet, he says. Fifty per cent of the
  Earth's species will have vanished inside the
  next 100 years mankind is using almost half the
  energy available to sustain life on the planet,
  and this figure will only grow as our population
  leaps from 5.7 billion to ten billion inside the
  next half-century. Such a dramatic and
  overwhelming mass extinction threatens the entire
  complex fabric of life on Earth, including the
  species responsible for it Homo sapiens.

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Does it matter?

• Make points for and against.

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Possible solutions

• Shift to sustainable existence
• Colonize space
• (Undergo massive population reduction)
• Others?

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Bowers Reading

• Summarize?

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Cartesian Mindset

• René Descartes - Cogito Ergo Sum - I think
  therefore I am.
• Mind is separate from body.
• Mind is separate from rest of world.
• Mind is superior.

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Bowers

• Current computing paradigms perpetuate the
  Cartesian mindset, that the rest of the world
  exists to serve human minds.

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Cultural change

• To respond to growing environmental crisis, need
  to change core metaphors and ideologies of
  society.

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A point of contention

• Becoming aware of culture, it should be kept in
  mind, is just the first step in a process that
  must eventually engage the more politically
  difficult problem of sorting out the cultural
  patterns that are ecologically sustainable over
  the long term.
• I disagree. A patient doesnt need to know how a
  treatment works in order to be cured.

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Moral Poverty

• I disagree.
• A better conceptual system for the people needs
  to be put in place to supplant the current
  system, or it will never take off.
• Taking the moral high ground doesnt win any
  friends.

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In general, though

• Fixing a few iPod batteries isnt going to fix
  the environmental problem.
• Bowers offers an interesting suggestion about how
  to approach this broad issue.

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Band-aid vs. Cure

• iPod protest is a band-aid. Reduces rate of
  harm, but doesnt do much to reverse trend.
• Cultural change may be a cure, but will we (can
  we) take it?
• Band-aids arent a bad thing, but they dont fix
  the problem. Cures are a lot harder than
  band-aids.

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Key Idea

• Accurate data may or may not play a role in
  environmental decision making.

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Ecoinformatics

• Study of how to convert ecological data into
  useful and comprehensible information.

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Information -gt Action

• Scientists gather data.
• Scientists interpret data to produce information.
• People make decisions based on information and
  other factors.
• Policymakers make decisions based on information
  and other factors.

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Information -gt Action

• Scientists gather data.
• Scientists interpret data to produce information.
• The media uses information to produce engagement.
• Engagement causes people to form beliefs.
• Peoples beliefs influence policymakers
  decisions.

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Information -gt Action

• People gather data.
• Scientists interpret data to produce information.

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Information !-gt Action

• People form beliefs based on other factors,
  irrespective of data.
• Peoples beliefs influence policymakers
  decisions.

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What other factors

• affect personal decisions and governmental
  policy?

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Debate topic

• Resolved Advances in computing technologies in
  the past 20 years have produced a net benefit for
  ecosystems around the world.
• Discuss with neighbors - 5 minutes.

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Todays environmental technologists are...

• come on down front!

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(No Transcript)