Technology & communications after fossil fuels

Modern communications systems send information across vast distances in massive quantities at breathtaking speeds. Every sector of the economy depends on the capture, access, and rapid transmission of information: from stock market quotes to weather forecasts; from orders for replacement parts for the electricity grid to requisitions for restocking supermarket shelves. End-use communications devices such as computers, phones, televisions, and radios rely upon behind-the-scenes infrastructures of wires, fiber-optic cables, routers, servers, broadcasting stations and antennae, and cell towers. All of this technology represents embodied energy and requires operational energy.

Join Douglas Rushkoff, influential media critic and author of Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus, and Casey Harrell, director of Citizen’s Engagement Lab’s Climate Lab, along with Asher Miller and Richard Heinberg from Post Carbon Institute for a lively, free-flowing conversation about what the future of technology and communications might look like in a 100% renewable energy future.

• Can we make technology that’s carbon neutral? What would that look like? Would we still be replacing it with a new model every couple of years?
• How will technology companies shift their business models away from planned obsolescence?
• What companies are doing the best job of reducing carbon emissions and toxic waste in manufacturing electronics?
• What nations or communities are doing the most to make modern communications climate-friendly
• How can we source the thousands of raw metals and other elements that go into the formation of technology components, without the use of fossil fuels?

When: August 17, 2016 at 11:00am Pacific/2:00pm Eastern
How to Participate: REGISTER
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