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climate change, technology and culture 
01.19.2007, 10:40 PM
There's been a lot of talk in the press lately about the possibility that climate change may be closer to the point of no return than people thought. It suddenly occurred to me that in all the retreat's discussions about the future of the book, we didn't really touch on the potential impact of external factors such as this on people's use of technology or way of thinking.
This may come out somewhat garbled, as it's the middle of the night (3.45 GMT) and I'm not sure why I'm awake. But I think that any sense of the inevitability of technological 'progress' needs to be checked against the extreme likelihood of climate change dramatically altering our way of life in a way that includes our relationship to and use of technology.
To put it more simply, what happens to the networked book if (for instance) all the lights go out? If this is even possible, is it not profoundly short-sighted to be championing digital culture without some capacity for moving or archiving that culture offline as well?
Is this a fruitful avenue to explore, or simply way too apocalyptic? Either way, I think it merits naming.
Posted by sebastian mary at January 19, 2007 10:40 PM
Comments
Definitely merits naming and not simply in terms of contingency plans for global blackout. The cyber-utopian outlook presumes a separation of the virtual world from the material one, but digital culture absolutely has physical consequences. In a culture of constant upgrades and planned obsolescence, machine waste -- the accumulated garbage of discarded hardware -- is a growing problem. And obviously, the materials required to build computers and all their accompanying bits and pieces require material resources, some of them scarce, which can lead to conflict in parts of the world far removed from happy consumer electronics land (read this section -- cards 45 and 46 -- in Gamer Theory about Congolese coltan mining for conductors in the Sony Playstation). It was recently calculated that the average Second Life avatar consumes uses as much energy annually (all those servers huffing and puffing) as the average Brazilian.
More generally, I think the link between creative networks and ecological ones is a potentially profound cultural nexus that the Institute should be exploring. This is something that is already gestured at in Brian's manifesto draft and Bob's notes in response.
Posted by: ben vershbow at February 4, 2007 10:55 PM