Thoughts about life with limits
Common Ground?
Google turned out the lights to draw attention to Earth Hour.
The "Earth Hour" link pointed to this page on the ClimateSaversComputing.org (CSC) website. CSC's homepage asserts that, "[i]mproving the energy efficiency of computers is a smart way to save you money and fight climate change".
There is no doubt that these are worthwhile causes and goals but I want to examine the closing sentence of the page-in-question:
"At last, computers and the environment have found common ground"
Common ground?
I don't think so.
This kind of greenwashing is grossly misleading.
Saving energy and money and reducing CO2 emissions are but three aspects of a much larger picture consisting of waste, toxicity, pollution, exploitation, manufacturing, resource depletion and unsustainable consumption.
The issue of toxicity alone is considerable:
| Material | Main applications in computer production | Environmental/health Impacts |
| Plastics including PVC | Cabling, computer housings | Various cancers; endocrine system disruption (PVC emits highly toxic dioxins) |
| Lead | Soldering of printed circuit boards and other components; glass panels in CRT monitors | Significant amounts of lead ions are dissolved from broken lead containing glass, such as the cone glass of cathode ray tubes, when mixed with acid waters which commonly occur in landfills. Accumulates in environment and has high acute and toxic effects on plants, animals, and micro-organisms Damage to nervous system, blood |
| Barium | Vacuum tubes in CRT monitors | Short-term exposure to barium can lead to brain swelling, muscle weakness, damage to the heart, liver and spleen. Long-term effects of chronic exposure not yet known. |
| Beryllium | Used for thermal conductivity | Recently identified as human carcinogen. Exposure can cause lung cancer and skin diseases. |
| Cadmium | SMD chip resistors, infrared detectors, semiconductors, older models of CRTs; also used as plastic stabilizer | When plastics containing cadmium are landfilled, can leach into groundwater. Acute and chronic toxic compound which accumulates in human body, esp. in kidneys. Can be absorbed either through respiration or ingested through food. |
| Hexavalent Chromium | Mostly phased out, but still some limited use as corrosion protector and decorative or hardener for steel housings | Highly toxic material which can pass easily through cell membranes; causes strong allergic reactions (e.g. asthmatic bronchitis) even in small concentrations. May also cause DNA damage. Contaminated wastes can leach from landfills |
| Selenium | Used in rectifiers and printed wiring boards | Exposure to high concentrations of selenium compounds cause selenosis, the symptoms of which are hair loss, nail brittleness, and neurological abnormalities. |
| Mercury | Sensors and switches on printed circuit boards, batteries, switches/housing, printed wiring boards, tubes in flat panel screens | Mercury is released when electronic devices that contain it are destroyed – such as in, or on the way to, landfills. The vaporization of metallic mercury and dimethylene mercury is also a possibility. Both are highly toxic – methylated mercury causes chronic brain damage. Inorganic mercury is transformed into methylated mercury when introduced into natural water systems, where it concentrates in sediment. Easily accumulates in living organisms, especially fish. |
| Arsenic | ‘Doping’ agents in transistors and printed wiring boards | Chronic exposure to arsenic can lead to various diseases of the skin and decrease nerve conduction velocity. It can also cause lung cancer and can often be fatal. |
| PCBs (Poly-chlorinated biphenyls) | Used in capacitors and transformers (older equipment only) | PCBs affect the immune, hormone, nervous, and enzyme systems of the body and therefore have impacts on almost every organ. PCBs are considered by health agencies as a known carcinogen for animals and a probable carcinogen for humans. |
The March 30, 2007 edition of Schnews.org explored these issues in some depth:
"The production of the silicon chips used in all computery stuff is extremely resource intensive. While silicon itself is very abundant, it is extracted in destructive sand mining around the world, and the refinement process requires heating to 1900 degrees, then treating with nitric, sulphuric and hydrofluoric acids and arsenic. And it’s thirsty work: a UN study found that the production of a complete computer and monitor takes 240kg of fossil fuels, 22kg of chemicals, 1,500 litres of water – and that’s before packaging and long distance distribution.
"China has been hit with the environmental costs of such large scale manufacturing. In November 2005, a chemical accident in Jilin, north east China, saw 100 tonnes of benzene and nitrobenzene spill into the Songhua River, causing an 50 mile carcinogenic slick to flow down the river. Millions were left without drinking water for days with a deadly legacy for generations to come. Meanwhile BASF (the largest chemical company in the world and inheritors of Nazi collaborators IG Farben) has opened a $2.9 billion plant in Jiangsu to produce 600,000 tonnes of ethylene for plastic production annually as well as 1.1 million tonnes of other chemicals, in a country where acid rain falls on 30% of the country, and 70% of its lakes and rivers are polluted.
"While the whole computer industry is a million miles from ethical sustainability, some firms are worse than others. Smug Apple Mac users may have to ‘Think Different’ after a recent Greenpeace report placed Apple amongst the worst manufacturers for their environmental policies, using hazardous substances abandoned by others and strictly keeping to the regulatory minimums.
"Dell might have recently committed to a full ‘take back’ recycling scheme, and offers to plant a guilt-cleansing tree for customers paying an extra $2 (How PC!), but these petty gestures of mild corporate green one-up-man-ship do not compute. Hundreds of millions of computers have been chucked out over the last few years – the vast majority of which would have still been in working order – and around 90% of them have gone straight into landfill. A not insignificant three billion consumer electronic units are expected to become obsolete by 2010."
The fact is the larger technophilia-driven-picture yields very little common ground and I don't think real common ground will be found until we change our behavior more than our technology.
Schnews closed its article with this sage advice:
"If you have a computer - and even the anarcho-primitivists we know do - then the best advice from SchNEWS is... Direct Inaction. Do nothing. Don’t upgrade, if it ‘aint broke don’t fix it and if it is - get it repaired."■
