If you have a website, color uses more data (and energy) than black and white. Text uses less data (and energy) than images. Flashing images and videos use much more data than still photos.
Wait at least four years to upgrade. New software can make your computer and printer incompatible"and lead to buying new hardware. Buying a new computer and/or a new printer means engaging the global super-factory.
https://ifixit.com posts free repair manuals on 80,000 items.
POLICY #3 comes from Cris Rowan: no electronics for children until they have mastered reading, writing and math on paper. Besides helping children develop as nature designed""without an electronic interface""this policy delays engaging the global super-factory.
Build skills""like drawing a map of your neighborhood or cooking a meal""that don't require electronics.
POLICY #4 When your school or business purchases electronics in bulk, buy only from manufacturers who verify that children are not involved in mining, workers are paid fairly and not exposed to toxins. Consider guidelines at pactworld.org and the Basel Action Network.
POLICY #5 recognizes that no technology is safe until proven safe. To prove that electrical infrastructure is safe, insist that municipal officials require documentation that professional engineers have certified that fire and collapse hazards have been mitigated. PEs are licensed subject-matter experts. They hold liability for their reports. No one drives over a bridge, lets a substation go live or drinks water until a PE has certified its safety.
Let's return to my city attorney telling our councilors, "We trust the telecom companies." He likely said this because federal laws support telecom corporations and limit ways that municipalities can protect their interests""and he likely does not want our city sued by a telecom corporation. Today, if I attended a public hearing regarding 5G (or smart meters or a utility-scale solar or wind system), I would say, "Please show the PE's certified report that fire and collapse hazards have been mitigated." I would politely repeat, "Show the documentation" until the attorney produced it""or admitted that he did not have it.
POLICY #6 comes from France, where manufacturers may only call a product "zero-emitting" or "carbon-neutral" if they can prove that this is true from the product's cradle to its grave. In France, manufacturer can only use these terms when they have proof.
Could we extend this law to include "green," "clean" and "sustainable?" Right now, these are just marketing terms""with no standards and no monitoring.
POLICY #7 comes from a friend who realized, decades after becoming a telecom designer, that his teachers never taught him to consider the ecological impacts of unlimited telecom growth.
Policy #7 goes to schools. Would schools require students of engineering, environmental studies and business to trace the supply chains of their computers' substances and biological impacts?
Would engineering schools require students to design for a product's second life""at the design stage? A battery might not be able to power a 3000-pound car for more than a few years; but in its second life, it could charge laptops in a community with minimal electricity.
Would engineering schools encourage students to design biodegradable electronics?
Would business schools require studying the economic and ecological impacts of extracting ores and manufacturing chemicals? What would our tech look like if we limited energy use, extractions and refining to local resources? could we still do PowerPoints like this one?
Would medical schools require study of electronic interference between, say hybrid or electric vehicles and medical implants""and ways to reduce exposure to electromagnetic radiation?
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