IT's Role in Environmental Sustainability
July 13, 2010 / By Anna Lynn Spitzer
Climate disruption, biodiversity loss, rising sea levels, pollution and exploding populations portend possibly devastating global consequences.
But Calit2 affiliate Bill Tomlinson, author of the recently published book “Greening through IT: Information Technology for Environmental Sustainability,” is hopeful that information technology can contribute to a brighter future for the planet.
Tomlinson, associate informatics professor and SURF-IT mentor, discussed his book and ongoing research projects as he led off the SURF-IT seminar series on Tuesday.
“The issue at hand is that we’re faced with a lot of environmental problems in the world … and we’re not good at intervening in problems that are hundreds or thousands of years long,” he said..
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In addition to this the time component, the issues of space and complexity make it difficult for humans to comprehend the enormity of the problems and take action to offset them. His book contends that IT can help bridge that gap.
On the other hand, he said, IT has played a role in creating some of those problems. Energy use, carbon dioxide production and electronic waste are byproducts of the information age but Tomlinson hopes the technology’s positive impacts can offset the negatives.
“Ultimately I see information technology as a force multiplier. It helps people do things we’re already going to do, but faster, more effectively, cheaper, better and more.” He cited IT’s contributions to sustainability, including increased efficiency in the Third World, a smart grid for electricity distribution and the Surfrider Foundation, which incorporates IT tools to protect the world’s oceans and beaches.
“Now that we can see some of the problems coming down the pike, we can start to build IT systems that won’t just make the problem worse but will instead help us to address these long-term problems effectively.”
Tomlinson’s Social Code Group at UCI is doing its part. KarunaTree, an NSF-funded online entertainment experience, is one example. The interactive game is intended to cultivate children’s environmental literacy and give them tools to respond to global environmental challenges.
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“It’s based on the core thesis that games can be an effective means of helping kids sharpen their understanding of distributed causal networks – the ways in which different actions cause other things to happen,” said Tomlinson.
The story-driven virtual world is built on top of the Google Earth interface. The game follows the activities of a character named “Sam,” who helps the environment by “planting” KarunaTrees, with wide-ranging results. It features what Tomlinson calls “charismatic megafauna” – cute, fuzzy creatures meant to engage children – and focuses on several different perspectives of a specific action.
Utilizing Google Earth allows players to instantly see both the localized issues and the longer-ranging consequences. Kids can zero in on a locality where an environmental problem begins, then zoom back out to regional, national or global levels. “That way, they can explore the impacts of a certain action at these different scales,” Tomlinson said, “and how that translates into things they see on shelves at the store.”
The effort also involves “intervention” game play, through which the players take action – creating pictures, diagrams, short videos or other presentations – that can be uploaded to a specific geo-location and appear on application-enabled cell phones. For example, a child might create a “buy safe palm oil” message that would pop up on his parents’ phone when they approach a local mall. These efforts are KarunaTree “seeds,” which let the children see the difference their contributions can make. “As those seeds start to have impact – as people look at them and explore them – the KarunaTree gradually grows up,” Tomlinson explained. “It’s allowing kids to take action and have their message heard.”
The game will be deployed this month with a local group from Girls Inc., a national non-profit organization that mentors school-age girls.
Tomlinson ended his presentation with a lively group discussion of the pros and cons of creating “sustainable” software. “If you make your software more efficient, does that make the world more or less sustainable?” he asked, wondering if increased efficiency raises the odds that people will have additional time to overuse products, resulting in less sustainability. “If I get better gas mileage, I may go out and drive more,” he said by way of example.
“The way we are living our lives [now] is pretty dramatically unsustainable,” he concluded. “Does making our lifestyle more efficient make us more sustainable or does it make us able to do the same things we were already doing, more efficiently, and therefore worsening our effect and making our society more efficiently unsustainable?”
To view program video, click here.
-- Anna Lynn Spitzer