Under-reported news from the technosphere

gathered by Katie Singer

Telecommunications

Last year, during a drought, the Taiwanese government opted to reduce water to farmers—and to maintain semiconductor factories’ water demands. This clarifies priorities. Semiconductors build computing chips for computers, including iPhones and cars.

While telecom providers push for a mobile-only world, plenty of people still have landlines. Why keep corded landline phones? During a power outage, they’re much more reliable. They don’t create electronic interference with medical implants. They don’t emit microwave radiation.

            The Global Education Monitoring’s 2023 report finds little evidence that digital technologies support education—and that excessive screen-time harms children.

Wired Broadband, Inc. and BroadBand International Legal Action Network sponsored a Town Hall last month focused on 80+ federal telecom bills making their way through the U.S. Congress. Here’s a summary of presenters’ comments: https://www.bbilan.org/blog/2023-08-16-wbi-town-hall-on-federal-bills.

Taking from the Earth to make computers, EVs, solar and wind power

Demand for “critical” minerals has doubled in the past five years. In “Rare Earth Mining: Sacrificing the Environment to Save the Planet?” Tatyana Novikova illuminates how extracting minerals for telecommunications, solar power, wind power and e-vehicles destroys pristine ecosystems.

Last June, I began reporting about efforts by tribes, Max Wilbert and others to stop Lithium Americas Corporation from mining Thacker Pass, Nevada. For updates, read Max Wilbert’s Aug. 23, 2023 piece: “Water Protectors Sued by Mining Company Ask Court to Dismiss Case.” Also, while Lithium Americas Corporation tries to distance itself from human rights abuses at its project in Argentina, Indigenous women lead mass protests against lithium mining.

            A bipartisan bill would further protect mining in the Western U.S. to provide key ingredients for e-vehicle batteries, solar PV systems, wind power and computers. Environmentalists denounce Democratic Senator Catherine Cortez Masto’s mining bill.

Solar and wind power news

Reuters reports that Arizona-based company First Solar’s Malaysian service providers subjected workers to forced labor. See also Nichola Groom’s “U.S. blocks more than 1,000 solar shipments over Chinese slave labor concerns.”

A hailstorm destroyed a solar farm in Nebraska and generated toxic waste. Will toxins leech into groundwater? Who’ll pay for the cleanup?  

            Since 2014, Scotland has chopped down about 16 million trees to develop wind farms. What makes this “green” energy? What makes it “sustainable?”   

Good news
To date, PFAS—carcinogenic chemicals that resist oil, water and heat—cannot be removed from soil or the body. According to the CDC, 97% of Americans have PFAs in their blood. Teflon pans, Gore-Tex fabric, Glide dental floss, solar panels and so much more are made with “forever” chemicals. The good news? A lab at the University of Auckland degraded PFAs at a molecular level by ball milling. Ball milling works like a mortar and pestle but at extreme speed and intensity. The researchers destroyed 99.88% to 100% of PFAS in soil from a decommissioned New Zealand firefighting training site—which left a safe by-product.

            Mark Shephard’s Farm thrives by his sheer-total-utter-neglect. I admit that the plants I ignore (chard, potatoes, cilantro, thyme, for examples) thrive in my garden. The ones I nurse don’t do nearly as well. I’m learning.

            Last, Mapping Our Technosphere, the book I’ve worked on since 2018, is very nearly finished. It starts with a photo essay about the extractions, energy use, water use, toxic waste and fire hazards involved in manufacturing, operating and discarding the Internet’s computers and infrastructure. Introduced by the late Jerry Mander, it includes Miguel Coma’s reports about why 5G is great for private-factory networks—and unnecessary, harmful and energy-guzzling for public networks. It’s packed with ways to strengthen respectful relationship with nature. It challenges engineers to make biodegradable computers. It invites environmentalists to make telenovelas with characters who prefer keeping the computers and cars they already have in good repair…to buying new stuff that engages the global super-factory; they get wired access, sleep better and prefer playing saxophone to video games…while enjoying satisfying romances.

            Can you help this book get to the printer? It needs $15,000 to purchase copyright permits for rare images of mining and refining the Internet’s rare earth elements; for editing, design, website expenses…and to keep its author fed and sheltered. Ecological Options Network, my fiscal sponsor, can take donations of $500 or more. Please address your check to EON, and write “Katie Singer book project” in the memo area. Address the envelope to Mary Beth Brangan, EON Co-Director, POB 1047, Bolinas, CA 94924. 

Smaller (still much appreciated!) donations can go through PayPal or directly to me, at PO Box 6574 Santa Fe, NM 87502 USA.

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