2010 Flashback to Europe's Decade of Racial Profiling E-Waste

Back in November 2010, I used a cover photo on a blog to convey how Europe was relying on photojournalism to set waste policy. WRONG, WRONG, WRONG was one of my most visited blogs that year - the year Interpol launched "Project Eden", an approach to Africa and Asian geeks that was as cringeworthy as the Eurotrash Art.

2016 - Particularly Hoppy Bourne Brew of Ewaste Blogs

This year, the average readership per blog has doubled.  That's no doubt thanks to the interest in #ewaste generated by the Basel Action Networks claims, and academic links to MIT Senseable City Lab.  I thought perhaps the links to Hong Kong (specific geographies, like Tin Shui Wai) may have had something to do with the readership, but actually the hits were greater in the Pakistan Faisalabad blog (which tracked the 3 CRT monitors that BAN said were exported, 2 of which wound up at a TV remanufacturing operation a few blocks from a major urban university - a far more interesting story than the dystopia described by BAN).

Or is it something else entirely that attracts readers?  Jim Puckett, the speakers on TED about #ewaste, EU policy makers, publish-or-perish researchers, the regulators, and myself, are all looking for the right background for the movie we are making in our heads, about ourselves, and our role in discarded items generated by consumers.  We all perceive ourselves in a defensive position.  EU folks I interviewed seem absolutely dumbfounded that the African Tech Sector I work with saw them in a completely "offensive" light.

Pictures of kids at dumps, and Halloween ghoulish rice-paddy language, make our jobs - and our blogs - seem more exciting, more worthy of a Moby Soundtrack (bottom).  Activists perceive ourselves as heroes, academics as judges or historians, and commercial interests are in some ways the most honest - getting food on the table for families by providing what the marketplace asks for.

Protein and Gold: Gore's Generation of Environmentalists Circuitous Path

"I believe in global warming"

"I don't believe in global warming"

These two statements seemed to starkly define a generation.  They become emblems of environmentalism, or environmental skepticism.   Many use one of these statements to define who they are.   The first is more popular, perhaps, because it's emblematic of compassion, and people dig compassion.

I believe extinction, the consumption of diverse species, is the simplest measure of our society's place in history of the planet.  Any other measure - carbon, or prayers, temperature, or wealth - is a distraction from what future people will care about that we did today.  What drives our impacts today?   Protein and Gold.

I dig baby elephants.  And I want baby elephants to have papas and mommies.  It's a simple faith in nurture, and it doesn't make me an environmental scientist.  But because I don't want elephants, or frogs, or tigers, walruses, or seals to be extinct, I work in recycling.  And it has nothing at all to do with landfills, or with carbon.   To save these species, we must alter our love of metals, especially expensive metals like gold.   And if you think teaching humans to consume less energy is challenging, try teaching people to let go of gold.

This is not a statement about the science of global warming.  It's a statement about human psychology, and the way media tries to educate society about need for change.  When we need society's consumption to change - and I'm convinced more than ever that we do - we need to understand our own psychology, our own cognitive dissonance, our own appetite for opinion change, and to invest in messages which opinion research indicates will make a darn difference one hundred to one thousand years from now.

For now, the loudest discussions, if not debate, are over global warming and climate change (thanks Mr. Gore).   There is no denying that there are many, many sophisticated arguments humans engage in to support either position at the top on belief in global warming.   There is also no denying that public discussion of the issue focuses primarily on the psychology and assessment of the opponent.

Merely referencing dry scholarly work on the shrinking (or not) of Mars poles, as an indicator of the average temperature on Mars, demands an apology.  From Yahoo answers discussion, links to these two papers are presented with a disclaimer... "I'm not a denier but evidence shows that they (Mars plar caps) are melting." 

http://sirius.bu.edu/withers/pppp/pdf/bo... 
http://depts.washington.edu/marsweb/pape... 

The discussion of global warming here on earth is usually hedged today with similar qualifiers.   "It's undeniable that even if the Earth is warming for other reasons (solar or celestial energy), that humans are producing more carbon, and carbon will exacerbate the rate of global warming."