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Katie Singer writes about nature and technology in Letters to Greta. She spoke about the Internet's footprint in 2018, at the United Nations' Forum on Science, Technology & Innovation, and, in 2019, on a panel with the climatologist Dr. James Hansen. Her most recent book is An Electronic Silent Spring. www.DearGreta.com and www.ElectronicSilentSpring.com.
OpEd News Member for 518 week(s) and 5 day(s)
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Thursday, October 10, 2024A recipe for respecting nature and technology's limits-- and another for exploiting them 1. Abide by Herman Daly's principles: Do not take from Earth faster than it can replenish, and do not waste faster than Earth can absorb the waste.
Sunday, September 8, 2024The Great Salt Lake is Disappearing. So, Utah Banned the Rights of Nature. A guest essay by Will Falk For 11,000 years, The Great Salt Lake and its wetlands have provided habitat for hundreds of species. Today, more than 40 million people in the U.S. and Canada depend on the Lake's water. Nearly 350 bird species-- totaling more than 10 million migratory birds-- depend on this ecosystem for food like brine flies and brine shrimp.
Sunday, September 8, 2024Fire hazards at the battery storage system coming near you On Friday, August 30, Applied Energy Services Corporation (AES), a global utility and power-generation company, submitted a proposal to Santa Fe, New Mexico county commissioners to build a 700-acre solar facility with a battery energy-storage system (BESS).
Wednesday, September 4, 202421 questions for solar PV explorers Today's post is inspired by Bill McKibben's speaking in Santa Fe for the second time in less than a year. In 2023, he advised people not to be a "NIMBY" when corporations propose installing large-scale solar or wind facilities. Alas. I've still got questions about these systems...
Sunday, September 1, 2024Three questions for Israelis and U.S. Americans (weapon-suppliers): Do you know the Jewish law that forbids warriors from trapping an enemy--because trapping endangers the trap-maker?
Saturday, August 31, 2024A Strategy of Peace President Kennedy's extraordinary June 10, 1963 Speech at American University.
Thursday, August 22, 2024Calming behavior in children with autism and ADD: a free, EMR-reduction protocol In 2006, a two-year-old with delayed speech, high-pitched screaming and anxious behavior visited California pediatrician Dr. Toril Jelter's office with his parents.
Saturday, August 17, 2024A wild idea, a bitter remedy Most of us don't know what's involved in manufacturing smartphones, solar panels, cars, appliances or TVs. We don't know about the water, energy, extractions or shipping. We don't know about the smelters or child labor or slave labor. The Internet makes us think that everything we want is within reach.
Monday, August 12, 2024What my world needs now I just heard about another digital situation that I have no idea how to handle. A college instructor read a student's final paper, found it "a word salad" and ran it through the school's AI-content detector. Content detectors take note if writing shifts abruptly from one idea to another without much connection. They notice changes in tone-- say from formal to casual.
Monday, August 5, 2024If we depend on water As Millan observed, harm to water cycles can make land "incapable of supporting the region's climate." Of course, manufacturing anything (i.e., cement and transistors-- or refining ores) requires vast amounts of water that are returned to waterways"toxic.
Thursday, August 1, 2024Please, I need to do my own housekeeping I might say I need housekeeping like some people need meditation. This Samsung commercial for an AI that will keep your house in order therefore baffles me. Who would want a robot to take care of them?
Tuesday, July 23, 2024Who defines "sustainable?" Decades ago, the late ecological economist Herman Daly named two rules for creating sustainability: Don't take from the Earth faster than it can replenish; and don't waste faster than it can absorb.
Saturday, July 6, 2024Journals, letters, I've loved you: an accounting of archives, history and digitalization The Internet is not an archives. It's a global super-factory of individually-owned computers, data storage centers guzzling electricity and water, and access networks, vulnerable to disintegrating hardware, creating contests for energy and water between data centers and householders, spewing toxic waste.
Friday, June 14, 2024The Luddite Travels Luddite: an English textile worker (1811-1816) who opposed cost-saving machinery because it took away jobs; a person opposed to new technology ("a small-minded Luddite resisting progress").
Sunday, June 2, 2024Consider yourself blessed Say that well-meaning relatives and friends who aim to protect children and do right for the Earth are online all the time. They give their children smartphones. They buy and sell electric vehicles and solar PV systems.
Friday, May 10, 2024Calling for a National, Three-Year Period of Humility A tech lover recently told me that he and several colleagues have realized: 1. The Earth does not have enough energy, minerals or water to support AI, e-vehicles, solar PVs, industrial wind facilities and batteries. Not at the scale we dream to fulfill. Not with eight billion humans.
Friday, May 3, 2024Discovering Power's Traps: a primer for electricity users In magazines like Mother Jones and Sierra Club, environmentalists who aim to reduce harmful impacts to public health, wildlife habitats and climate systems propose "electrifying everything." I don't get it.
Wednesday, March 27, 2024Watershed questions Can you draw a map of your bioregion? When does your rainy season begin? In your region, where does rainfall go? Where does your kitchen and bathroom wastewater go?
Tuesday, March 19, 2024While facing existential threats, what do precautionary actions look like? Here's a pristine example of acting without caution: A few years ago, while my neighbor and I talked near my strawberry patch, a swarm of ants suddenly appeared. "I have a can of poison on my porch!" my friend cried. "Okay," I said, oblivious to potential consequences, focused on the quick solution. In a blink, the ant swarm died. The next time I looked, the strawberry patch was gone, too.
Tuesday, March 5, 2024Imagining a techno-sustainable Palestine First, may every Palestinian have nutrient dense food and clean water, immediately and every day.
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