Hidden Costs of Technology

Yet not all criticism levelled against the computer industry is fair nor accurate. A case in point is the issue of energy consumption. Last year, in an article in Forbes, author Mark Mills claimed that the Internet accounts for approximately 8% of all electricity use in the US. Jonathan Koomey from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, rejected these claims outright, noting that "even if one accepts the validity of calculating electricity consumption 'associated with the internet' in isolation, the estimates for direct electricity use in Mills' report are too large by a factor of eight."

Some mistakes made by the Forbes article were so elementary, that even those with a vague knowledge of computers could point out the inaccuracies. For instance, the Forbes article declared that a typical computer and its peripherals require about 1,000 watts of power. This level of consumption is more than most household and kitchen appliances, including microwave ovens. Most computers and peripherals, in fact, actually use less than a fifth of this amount.

Even so, this should not blind us to the fact that computer technology is not as clean as it appears to be. The real environmental costs behind digital technology is not at the end user but hidden within the manufacturing process and delivery systems that enable people from various points of the globe to connect with each other through electronic devices.

One the hidden costs, which is truly hidden from view but just as problematical, is that of space debris. According to European Space Agency, (ESA) the number and mass of debris in the Earth's orbit has kept growing - despite a decreasing annual launch rate. In 1995 there were about 7,700 man-made objects in orbit around the earth, with only 6% of them working satellites. [3] In 1999, the ESA claimed there were about 8700 man-made objects that were being tracked in orbit, of which only about 600 to 700 were operational satellites.[1]

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The problem is that not only does this represent a 14% increase over 4 years, but researchers actually have no idea of just how much "uncatalogued" debris is floating in space now, particularly since parts of upper stages of space rockets, previously believed to burn up completely during entry into the denser atmosphere of earth, were found on Texan soil in 1997. Even more worrying is the fact that much of this galactic garbage is radioactive.

Although the hazard posed by space debris to people and property on the ground is extremely small, what concerns the ESA and other experts more is that the impact of space debris on the plethora of communications satellites launched in recent years is unknown. Both the ERS-1 and SPOT 2 satellites had to perform evasive manoeuvres in the last few years to avoid colliding with what is essentially now considered "rubbish".

This space debris problem is further aggravated by the ambitions plans to extent the breadth and scope of the Internet. The low-earth orbit (LEO) plans of Teledesic, a company jointly owned by Craig McCaw and Bill Gates, foresees a girdle of 288 LEO satellites. The probability of satellites bumping into left-overs from previous missions will be greatly increased unless some sort of control regime is in place.

Closer to earth, the semiconductor industry, which is responsible for the manufacturing of silicon chips, the basic building block of computer devices, is perhaps the world's worst in terms of pollution. As Ron Chepesiuk reports, in his article "Toxic Chips"[2] , "few industries require the same amount of toxic chemicals that is required to manufacture computer chips. The number of toxic materials needed to make the 220 billion silicon chips manufactured annually is staggering: highly corrosive hydrochloric acid; metals such as arsenic, cadmium, and lead; volatile solvents like methyl chloroform, benzene, acetone, and trichloroethylene (TCE); and a number of super toxic gases."

Yet it's not only the materials used in the manufacturing process which is the problem. Another problem has to do with the pace of technological change itself, which has been greatly accelerated because of the intense economic competition of the global economy. This rapid pace of change does not give enough time to evaluate the safety of certain products or processes. Hence, adequate toxicological assessments are rare, and where they do exist information is scant. As Chepesiuk observes, "many manufacturing processes take place in closed systems, which means that exposures to harmful substances are often difficult to detect unless monitored daily." As a result of all this, the semiconductor industry is faced with increasing criticism for its impact on workers' health. Environmental, workers rights, and human rights activists have already detected serious disease and health problems at semiconductor plants in foreign countries. In Taiwan, for example, 57 Filipinos, working at a Phillips Electronics plant from July 1996 to December 1997, got sick. Five of them died, the result of a disease known as Stevens-Johnson Syndrome (SJS), claim activists. The rest were fired.

Yet the industry's ability to simply dismiss the environmental impact and subsequent criticism of the semiconductor industry will not come easy. Lawsuits in the US and elsewhere are bringing high profile attention to the environmental and occupational impact of the world's largest and fastest growing manufacturing sector.

The first lawsuit against IBM, scheduled for trial in the spring of 2000, will involve Zachary Ruffing, a 13 year-old boy born with severe birth defects to a couple of IBM workers. Chepesiuk reveals that this lawsuit has industry officials worried, for "unless they score a clear legal victory they could face a deluge of lawsuits comparable to the litigation over the silicon implants that bankrupted Dow Corning." To make matters worse, there are a host of others already waiting their turn. One of the largest involves 128 former IBM workers and their families, including 11 who have died of cancer, who filed a lawsuit in 1996 against several chemical makers, including Eastman Kodak, Union Carbide, J.T Baker Chemical Corporation, and K.T.I. Chemical Corporation. Worker's compensation laws in New York State prevent employees from suing IBM directly. But their children can sue, and so 16 of them are also part of the lawsuit, claiming birth defects from in utero exposure.

Chepesiuk notes that the New York case is just one of the three major lawsuits involving the semiconductor industry. In San Jose, California, a group of cancer victims and their families have filed suit against IBM and its chemical suppliers, alleging that workers at the local IBM plant were exposed to fatal doses of cancer-causing chemicals over three decades. Meanwhile, 70 women in Scotland are suing another US company, National Semiconductor, claiming exposure to cancer-causing chemicals.

Although action against the irresponsible practices of the semiconductor industry are beginning to make themselves heard, government and industry leaders alike will do all they can to shield and preserve the status quo. Because of its size and growth, the 150 billion USD computer chip industry has been described as "the pivotal driver of the world economy." There are more than 900 computer chip plants scattered throughout the US, Asia, Europe, Latin America, and the Caribbean. In addition to this, there are currently at least 127 new semiconductor fabrication plants in various stages of planning and construction worldwide, with the total expenditure expected to exceed 115 billion USD.

One way in which the semiconductor industry will undoubtedly overcome their difficulties will be to shift their manufacturing activities elsewhere, a process which, in fact, is already well underway. This is clearly the modus operandi not only between rich northern nations and poorer southern countries (as in the case with the US and Mexico), but also runs from west to east, as in the case of the European Union (EU) and those begging for membership. Indeed, the prime focus of EU expansion is that the accession countries of Central and Eastern Europe must concentrate their effort on exports, rather than production for local needs. In conjunction with this, they must allow foreign capital to move into and out of the country without restraint.

This policy of relocating dirty industries to poorer countries, which lies at the heart of globalization, is reinforced by international agencies such as the World Bank and the IMF. In a 1991 World Bank internal memorandum arguing for the transfer of waste and dirty industries from industrialized to developing countries, Lawrence Summers, then the chief economist at the World Bank, wrote that "the World Bank [should] be encouraging more migration of the dirty industries to the LDCs [least developed countries]."

"I think the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that," the memo went on. "I've always thought that underpopulated countries in Africa are vastly underpolluted; their air quality is vastly inefficiently low compared to Los Angeles or Mexico City."

Mokhiber and Weissman (1999), referring to this memo in their article "The Trouble with Larry"[3] , describe underlying premises behind the notion that poor countries should import pollution and waste is simply an application of the economic theory behind globalization. "In this worldview, poor countries should exploit their 'comparative advantage' of low wages, or access to natural resources, or lower environmental standards," explain Mokhiber and Weissman. "While few countries have 'developed' with this approach, it has proved very effective for companies like Nike, which has taken advantage of low wages throughout Asia, or even GM, which produces cars and trucks in Mexico with the same technology as in Michigan but with lower-wage workers."

In Central and Eastern Europe the situation is no different. Seagate, one of the world's major manufacturers of computer hard drives, established operations in Central Hungary while it simultaneously downsized and closed operations in the US. Huge factories of most major electronic and computer firms can be found in and around the area of Szekesfehervar, where the mayor had offered special concessions and tax breaks in order to entice "investment" to the area. Meanwhile, nearby educational institutions cater specifically for these industries, sacrificing a certain amount of academic independence and critical insight in order to provide workers for these multinational firms.

The end result of all this manifold. Economically, the accession countries will be more economically volatile, as an economic crisis can be triggered at anytime (intentionally or unintentionally) by a sudden withdrawal of foreign capital as a result of over-investment in production for export.

In terms of the environment, resources will be exploited and polluted for the sake of driving the gloabal-digital economy. While in the short term this may seem to "benefit" developing countries by providing employment and even a limited amount of infrastructure development, the long term effect will be a marked increase in health problems, a devastated environment, and a fragile economy teetering on the brink of ruin. Depending on how much people come to rely on an overly commercialized, pay-per-view of the world, delivered on electronic gadgets via the Internet, the real tragedy will be that this devastation -- human, environmental, and economic -- will seem unreal, and as something which someone else has to deal with.