Page 59 - Carbon Capitalism and Communication Confronting Climate Crisis

4 DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT … 43

integrity—“could inadvertently drive the Earth System into a much less
hospitable state, damaging efforts to reduce poverty and leading to a
deterioration of human wellbeing in many parts of the world, including
wealthy countries” (Crutzen and Steffen 2003). We have already witnessed
such inhospitable moments in severe weather events that are happening
with more force and frequency, while droughts and rising sea levels con-
tinue to threaten lives of millions of our fellow inhabitants, human and
non-human.
Environmental organizations and activists have employed ICTs to help
us better understand these changing conditions while strengthening forms
of resistance to, and reforms of, wasteful and toxic practices. Satellites and
networked telecommunication combined with innovations in measuring
and monitoring techniques have improved how we track atmospheric
changes, the health of sea habitats and marine life, and species well-being.
There are new processes for recovering and reusing harmful plastics arising
from advances in green chemistry (Grossman 2009). There are even
mobile applications to enable greener consumption (Maxwell and Miller
2014).
Meanwhile, citizen journalists and non-governmental organisations
(NGOs) are collecting evidence of despoliation of the natural environment
2
and publicizing their findings via digital channels ; confrontations between
Native American water protectors and oil-barons’ police armies have been
recorded in daily video dispatches from North Dakota to be seen by mil-
3
lions on social media screens ; powerful video and photographic evidence
of illegal toxic e-waste being picked over and burned for precious contents
in far-flung salvage yards has inspired mitigation reforms (Recycling Today
2015); artist-activists are mounting exhibits of digital works to think
through the traumas of displacement and forced migration caused by the
4
warming of the planet. Workers in the electronics factory zones of China
use the very same smartphones they assemble to memorialize their strug-
gles and share songs, slogans and poetry in solidarity with their comrades
(Qiu 2016).
While high-tech tools are important for organizing responses to global
warming and its pernicious effects—from techno-scientific mitigation
projects to environmentalists’ advocacy and activist efforts—the social lia-
bilities they carry with them must also be counted among the problems of
the ecological crisis. Good green intentions do not exempt progressive uses
of digital technology from having negative effects associated with