People, Planet & Technology #11
Ahoy folks 👋
first of all: Many thanks to everyone who took part in the small survey for this newsletter. That helped me a lot to get to know you better and to know what you hope for from this project. I've published the answers to the survey and some changes I want to make in my blog. Also you can now rate each issue individually and give me feedback. You can find the link at the end of this mail.
Before you go through my links you will find three recommendations that are important to me:
Over 20 scientists and technologists have published together a 97-page (!) paper describing how Artificial Intelligence can help overcome the challenge of the climate crisis. There is also a workshop, the recordings of which can be freely accessed. I really want to recommend this paper to you, because it doesn't just describe whether AI can help or not, but suggests concrete actions and even describes their effects and risks. Take the time to read it.
Now something entertaining for rainy summer evenings: Grist presents 8 environmental documentaries that are really worth every minute.
Last but not least for the German speakers of you: Greenpeace Germany asked me a few questions in their podcast about what the internet has to do with the climate crisis and how we can make the web greener.
Enjoy this issue...
🌍 Planet
Why the Guardian is changing the language it uses about the environment (The Guardian)
Developing Models to Predict Blue Whale Distribution in Near Real-time (SCGIS)
Talk: Using drones for conservation (YouTube)
Visualizing tsunamis (Medium)
Ocean Health Index: Open data science tools and resourcesfor marine science and management
A skeptic’s guide to climate change (BerkeleyEarth)
Mapping America’s wicked weather and deadly disasters (Washington Post)
Why Carbon Credits For Forest Preservation May Be Worse Than Nothing (ProPublica)
💻 Technology
The Sustainable Web Manifesto (Link)
Here are 10 ways AI could help fight climate change (MIT)
Using Big Data and Citizen Science to Protect the World's Tallest Mammals (Reset)
W3C published the Ethical Web Principles
Interactive story: We Read 150 Privacy Policies. They Were an Incomprehensible Disaster. (NYT)
How can we bring transparency to urban tech? (Side Walk Talk)
Small data and open hardware (Medium)
🦸♀️ People
Tristan Harris is at US Senate Commerce Committee speaking on how technology companies use algorithms and machine learning to influence the public (YouTube)
👉 Miscellaneous things:
Kenyan Nature Reserve Opens World's First Lab Dedicated to Conservation Technology (Reset)
Reinventing the Small Wind Turbine: A wooden rotor and tower greatly increase the net energy output over the lifetime of a small wind turbine. (Low Tech Magazine)
5G networks could throw weather forecasting into chaos (Grist)
Companies Can Predict Climate Catastrophes for You—as a Service (Wired)
I hope you enjoy this issue. I'm very interested in how you found this issue, please answer three questions or just reply to this mail.
Enjoy the readings,
and thanks again for being a part of this. 🙌
Take care.
-Niklas