GitLab

Radical Networks 2019 Proposal

Format: Talk Name: Jasmine Soltani Pronouns: she/her Location: NYC, NY
Email: jasmine.a.soltani@gmail.com Twitter: @mutantjasmine Repo: https://github.com/jfunky
Url(s): https://www.jasminesoltani.com/ Consent to being photographed?: Yes Consent to being on the livestream?: Yes

Speaker Bio and Profile Picture

Jasmine Soltani is an artist, researcher, and programmer whose work examines our relationships with politics, technology, and the environment. She is an advocate of repair, restoration, climate resiliency, and economic democracy as paths toward social and ecological justice. She a graduate and 2018-2019 resident researcher of NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP).

Profile Picture: http://www.jasminesoltani.com/headshot/JasmineSoltani.jpg

Description

I will present a brief literature review synthesizing what’s currently known about the energy use and related carbon footprint of the internet, and discuss some implications. There is increased popular pressure around decarbonizing the economy, and that must necessarily include our global networked infrastructure.

While cryptocurrencies received a lot of press for their energy and carbon impact, I would also like to address questions around: the impact of data privacy regulations, bot versus human activity, and machine learning. For example, a Jet Global study evaluating the effect of the GDPR found CO2 emissions reduced by 360 tons per day as a result of fewer marketing emails. To the extent possible, I will examine where emissions are concentrated and what could be done to reduce or eliminate them. Electronics consume the most energy at the production phase (compared with the use & disposal phases of a product life cycle) so things like renewable energy adoption in manufacturing might have an outsized impact.

I would like to note some low-impact networking alternatives and projects such as Low Tech Magazine's solar-powered website, and hope to generate some discussion in the audience around carbon reduction practices.

Length: 20 minutes for my presentation with 10 minutes for Q+A