Let’s talk about the internet… Do you know where you get your internet from? Well, you get it from undersea fiber optic cables…
The undersea fiber optic cables connect the entire network society. 99% of digital communications come from submarine systems and not satellites. Like, forreal? I never knew that the whole world depends on these cables. Your phone calls, texts, emails, websites, wouldn't make it without them. My mind is blown. Stephen Malphurus, staff director at the U.S. federal reserve board was interviewed and said 'the financial services sector does not grind to a halt, rather it snaps to a halt' if in fact they disappeared, or stopped working. That’s a rude awakening and a wake up call for me.
WTF LMAO
These undersea cables connect everyone. Its 223 international undersea cable systems and if they were to just disappear, only a very small amount of stuff would be backed up by satellite. My whole life and even until a few days ago, I thought the cloud was literally a cloud. I thought wireless meant literally that, wireless. Our whole world as we know it would change. To me, that means, no international calls, flights, or even easy domestic flights. We would easily be back to the stone age. Well, not the stone age, but definitely back in the days when we absolutely needed couriers. The internet would be effectively split between continents.
Information about the networks has often been withheld in a strategy of security through obscurity. Some information is thoroughly notated because of the competitive market of the telecommunication industry. An engineer and manager at Australian cable station said that satellites are sexier than cables and that they switched to cables long ago, but still use satellites for branding. I watched this TED talk recently and forgive me that I don’t remember the name, but what stood out to me is ‘if we’re going to be wired, we should know something about the wires.” I’m like hell na. Honestly, truly….
Let’s talk about outdated technology and what that shit is doing to our beloved planet…
The outdated residue of computer monitors, printers, hard drives, power cords, phones and more, eventually reaches a new location. We call them waste sites or warehouses, made specifically for their disposal. Once we use up everything, we discard it outside city limits. Out of sight, out of mind, right? We live in “a crisis of production”. There is no way that production and consumption can keep up with disposal at the rate we consume.
There are many stages and depots of disposal. The rubbish of electronics has to go through shipping containers, holding centers, stockpiling, recycling and salvaging materials, all before, it makes its final destination to become waste. Really, only a small percentage of e-waste is responsibly reused or recycled. A lot of what we think is responsibly recycled ends up in developing countries. Not to mention, we’re all guilty in the destruction of these so called developing countries. We’re responsible, whether we know it or not for the failing health and the danger we put locals while they extract the precious metals out of these devices. They’re poor people, so this is all by design. We’re exploiting them and we’re guilty of access and privilege. As sickening as it is, we are. We have developed as a world where only certain countries have access and certain countries produce our laborers. These workers risk their lives to earn a small living for our electronic gratification. They get sick and die, due to chemical exposure. We are all guilty, but can redeem ourselves by fighting for the US and maybe even the UN to have certain laws intact that force the community of e users to recycle. We can create a sustainability plan.
Where do we start? It will take extreme planning, and extreme dismantling efforts to make a systemic and global change. There are so many ways that the internet and most electronics are interwoven. That too has be analyzed and then debunked. What it the impact of the current state that we’re working with? The impact is glistening waters, made from motherboard residue. While very beautiful, its toxic waste and whether beautiful on accident, or on purpose, what is it doing to the planet? I urge you to research the artist Agnes Denes, who planted ten thousand trees, in an effort to both salvage the planet, create commitment to the planet and make art that is memorable and aesthetically pleasing and the Highline project in Manhattan, New York, that transforms and urban landscape to a semi rural experience, where nature is no longer present.
None of these are the answers, but I think its a good start…especially with whats going on in the amazon. Sheesh
