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ICS 131: Social Analysis of Computerization

ICS 131: Social Analysis of Computerization. Lecture 13: Environmental Impacts of Computing. Short Quiz. Please take one of the pieces of paper being handed out. Short Quiz.

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ICS 131: Social Analysis of Computerization

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  1. ICS 131: Social Analysis of Computerization Lecture 13: Environmental Impacts of Computing

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

  3. 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.

  4. Announcements • Short office hours today - 3:30-4:30

  5. 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

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

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

  8. iPod’s Dirty Secret

  9. 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.

  10. Does it matter? • Make points for and against.

  11. Possible solutions • Shift to sustainable existence • Colonize space • (Undergo massive population reduction) • Others?

  12. Bowers Reading • Summarize?

  13. 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.

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

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

  16. 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 doesn’t need to know how a treatment works in order to be cured.

  17. 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 doesn’t win any friends.

  18. In general, though… • Fixing a few iPod batteries isn’t going to fix the environmental problem. • Bowers offers an interesting suggestion about how to approach this broad issue.

  19. Band-aid vs. Cure • iPod protest is a band-aid. Reduces rate of harm, but doesn’t do much to reverse trend. • Cultural change may be a cure, but will we (can we) take it? • Band-aids aren’t a bad thing, but they don’t fix the problem. Cures are a lot harder than band-aids.

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

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

  22. Information -> 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.

  23. Information -> Action • Scientists gather data. • Scientists interpret data to produce information. • The media uses information to produce engagement. • Engagement causes people to form beliefs. • People’s beliefs influence policymakers’ decisions.

  24. Information -> Action • People gather data. • Scientists interpret data to produce information. • …

  25. Information !-> Action • … • People form beliefs based on other factors, irrespective of data. • People’s beliefs influence policymakers’ decisions.

  26. What other factors… • …affect personal decisions and governmental policy?

  27. 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.

  28. Today’s environmental technologists are... …come on down front!

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