World Wide Waste with Gerry McGovern – Details, episodes & analysis

Ben's career spans IT to telecoms and the evolving media landscape. With a foundation in IT at Logica for a decade, he transitioned to being the CTO of a pioneering music start-up at the peak of the internet revolution. His journey continued at Orange for almost another decade, where he played a pivotal role in the convergence of telecoms with the internet and spearheaded numerous media-focused initiatives.   Follow Ben on LinkedIn

Web design has rarely taken the environment into account. Over the last decade, web pages have become ten times bigger, and up to 80% of the weight of a particular webpage can be waste—content and code that is not required for the page to function. Do web designers and developers simply not care? Vitaly Friedman believes that they do care but that they need better education about accessibility, usability and sustainability. Vitaly Friedman is one of the nicest and most brilliant people I know. Born in Minsk, Belarus, he studied computer science and mathematics in Germany, and co-founded Smashing Magazine back in 2006, a leading online magazine for designers and developers. His curiosity drove him from interface design to front-end to performance optimization to accessibility and back to user experience over all the years.

Thea Kleinmagd is a Circular Material Chains Innovator at Fairphone. When you are buying your next smartphone, please consider Fairphone. They make excellent, modular and repairable products that are built to last. I started our chat by asking Thea to describe the potential toxic impacts of some of the over 50 different materials found in a typical smartphone. https://www.linkedin.com/in/thea-kleinmagd/ World Wide Waste book: https://gerrymcgovern.com/books/world-wide-waste/ Gerry on Twitter: https://twitter.com/gerrymcgovern

Dr. Josh Lepawsky is fascinated by connections between geography, technological systems, and their discards. He researches waste from the manufacturing of electronics to its end of life. He explores where e-waste accumulates and who it affects. He has a keen interest in “how maintenance and repair might offer lessons for figuring out how to live well together in permanently polluted and always breaking worlds. I started our chat by asking Josh about the “pernicious myth of digital-as-ethereal” https://electronicplanet.xyz/ https://mun.ca/geography/people/faculty/josh-lepawsky/ Gerry McGovern Twitter / https://twitter.com/gerrymcgovern World Wide Waste Book / https://gerrymcgovern.com/books/world-wide-waste/ Read transcript / https://www.thisishcd.com

Gauthier Roussilhe has specialized in the environmental footprint of the digital sector for 5 years, and is certainly among the most knowledable people I have been lucky to chat with about these issues. He is currently doing a PhD at the RMIT (Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology) to explore which digital infrastructures and services are compatible with a world stabilized at +2°C. I started our chat by asking Gauthier about the electricity impact of data centers. Global figures are not reliable. We need to look at a country-level basis.  “I don’t know what it’s like in Ireland but in France between now and 2050, we have to reduce our final energy consumption by 40%. That’s the framing we have to have in mind when we are analyzing such sectors. You can have all the data centers in Ireland absorbing all the renewable energy capacity that is being put on the grid. So, data centers might have very nice environmental reports, lowering the carbon intensity of the electricity mix but now allowing other actors to get this renewable energy, so it becomes a zero-sum game.” Gauthier website / https://gauthierroussilhe.com Gerry McGovern Twitter / https://twitter.com/gerrymcgovern World Wide Waste Book / https://gerrymcgovern.com/books/world-wide-waste/ Read transcript / https://www.thisishcd.com  

Andy Farnell is a British computer scientist and author specialising in signals, systems and cybersecurity. His popular textbook "Designing Sound" (MIT) and pioneering research and development in audio DSP and synthesis defined the field of Procedural Audio. Consultant to leading technology companies, and visiting professor across Europe, Andy is a long-time advocate and prominent speaker on issues of digital rights, free open source software, good educational opportunities and access to enabling tools and knowledge for all. His latest books are "Digital Vegan" and "Ethics For Hackers" (Routledge). Digital Vegan https://digitalvegan.net/ Read Gerry McGovern 'World Wide Waste'  Follow Gerry on Twitter 

Hannah is a freelance WordPress developer from Bristol with a background in Computer Science. Before freelance life, amongst other things, she honed her management skills at the Environment Agency, where she managed large business change projects. She’s co-founder of Green Tech South West and is on a mission to raise awareness about the environmental impact of digital tech - checkout #LetsGreenTheWeb on Twitter. She also likes dogs, plants and snow. World Wide Waste book / https://gerrymcgovern.com/world-wide-waste/ Gerry McGovern on Twitter / https://twitter.com/gerrymcgovern

'Earth Experience Design' course with Gerry McGovernDate: February 19 2022Where: OnlineTickets: https://www.thisisdoing.com/courses/earth-experience-design-january-2022  About this episode Is technology a good thing? That was my first question I asked Dr Sharon Richardson, who is a senior scientist and lecturer in geocomputation at the University of Zurich, where she applies data-intensive methods to improve understanding of and assist in human, societal and environmental challenges. Sharon also has a keen interest in exploring the potential and limits of AI in real-world decisions. World Wide Waste book / https://gerrymcgovern.com/world-wide-waste/ Gerry McGovern on Twitter / https://twitter.com/gerrymcgovern

Earth Experience Design - Online training Course with Gerry - Jan 19 2022 https://www.thisisdoing.com/courses/earth-experience-design-january-2022 About this episode Some people live their ideas. Katie Singer is one of them. She writes about the energy, extraction, toxic waste and greenhouse gases involved in manufacturing computers, telecom infrastructure, electric vehicles and other electronic technologies. Train with Gerry / https://www.thisisdoing.com/team/gerry-mcgovern Join the TiHCD Slack Community / https://www.thisishcd.com/community/slack-community Watch ''Top Tasks for Service Transformation' with Gerry McGovern & Ulla Devitt' / https://www.thisishcd.com/event-videos/top-tasks-for-service-transformation-with-gerry-mcgovern-ulla-devitt Gerry McGovern on Twitter / https://twitter.com/gerrymcgovern Download this episode: https://pdcn.co/e/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/bd8f5f93-c141-4567-92cc-a88801879d3f/ddca0573-ea81-4334-ad22-a88c017c8a99/35dfe9c4-010c-485b-9fcf-adf70092b521/audio.mp3?t=1638867356&skipAds=true

If someone looked inside your computer or your Cloud account would they find a tidy, clean, well-maintained place? Or would they find a messy, chaotic dump. Imagine if old, waste content smelled. How smelly would your computer be? Anneli Ohvril is founder and CEO of Let’s Do It World, the international environmental organisation that engages leaders and organisations around the globe for a waste-free world. The biggest project World Cleanup Day have engaged in involved more than 50 million people from 180 countries. Anneli is an expert in social change and excels in communication and marketing. She is an initiator of numerous social changes locally and globally. Read Gerry's brilliant book 'World Wide Waste' https://gerrymcgovern.com/world-wide-waste/ Gerry McGovern on Twitter https://twitter.com/gerrymcgovern Train with Gerry on This is Doing / Top Tasks https://www.thisisdoing.com/courses/top-tasks-identification-september-2021