Big Tech Versus Climate Change
How tech companies and all of us can help slow global warming. A growing share of Americans are , and the big U.S. tech companies would seem to be in a position to lead the way on fighting climate change. Theyre rich and staffed with smart people, and they have generally that warm the planet. My colleague , who writes about climate change and used to cover the tech industry, walked me through confusing climate change terms and how tech companies and all of us can help slow global warming. A company will still produce carbon emissions, but it will offset that by doing things that absorb emissions from the atmosphere like planting forests. Trees are great! They absorb carbon dioxide. At least some portion of Amazons and Apples climate action plans involve reforestation. But thats not enough. Climate scientists say global emissions must be cut by half by 2030 if we stand a chance of averting the worst impacts of warming. First, the industry uses lots of electricity, including for . If much of that comes from coal, it creates a boatload of planet-warming emissions. This is a relatively easy problem to solve if companies , which is expanding fast and getting cheaper. , Google and Microsoft have also gotten for selling technology to help the oil and gas industry extract fossil fuels, which are a major source of greenhouse gas emissions. Google . Other areas to watch: Can Apple, Amazon and Google compel manufacturers of their devices to reduce factory emissions and switch to cleaner energy? And can they reuse and recycle the materials inside of devices? In general, recycled materials are better for the environment. Then theres the question of how much internet companies like Facebook are helping spread . As a former technology reporter, this moment reminds me of when big U.S. tech companies didnt want on data privacy. They changed their privacy policies and promised to do better. Its possible that big tech companies are again setting themselves voluntary targets to forestall national legislation, like on emissions standards. Both and the now require their countries to achieve net zero emissions by 2050. Thats bound to affect tech and every other industry. We can on what goes into the technology we buy, what the climate impacts are and how long a product might last. We can also in the first place. Making shiny new things contributes to global warming. So does shipping, delivering and returning stuff. We can help by making our existing products or devices by replacing the battery or making a repair, or . In this 2019 dystopian novel, the only thing scarier than the all-pervasive presence of the internet is its abrupt disappearance. The story is told in alternating sections labeled Before and After. In the former, anarchist hackers unravel the web that holds us all; in the latter, they deal with the consequences of succeeding beyond their wildest dreams. While depicting many all-too-plausible extensions of control and surveillance technology, Maughan suggests that its impossible to take a simple stand for or against the machines with which our ways of life are already fused. This was the book that convinced me that young adult fiction might be especially open to exploring technological anxieties because teens have never known a world offline. Anderson envisions a future in which everyone has an implant feeding them entertainment, social interactions and micro-targeted advertising. The concept isnt new, but Andersons narrator has an unforgettable voice: Holden Caulfield with a near-lethal injection of swaggering early-aughts MTV. No piece of fiction has channeled my personal anxieties about social media quite as effectively as this. In a near future in which peoples status and livelihood depend directly on the ratings others give them, a young woman makes a fatal series of small mistakes that zero out her social credit. Its a nightmare that might convince you to put down the phone. To fight cyberattacks from China and Russia, the U.S. government for years has tried to name, shame and indict those behind them, and sometimes even counterattacked. But those punishments , reported David E. Sanger, the Times national security correspondent. Just about every tech company in the world considers India the emerging internet gold rush, but the companies are finding one big barrier: Many millions of Indians opt for basic cellphones over smartphones. This makes life harder for Netflix, Facebook and WeChat. The Chinese tech publication Abacus looks at why than that Nokia you had in the early 2000s. Five minutes ago, it was impossible to avoid surreal social media videos of Now the craze is dying, . Like any fun thing, weird cake was ruined because The Olds got into it. (I am An Old as well. I swear. Its fine.) Please enjoy very good dog . (And if you dont already, follow the dog sledder and author for lots of very good dogs.) writes the On Tech newsletter, a guide to how technology is reshaping our lives and world.