Climate change is perhaps the most urgent issue of the 21st century. The changing climate already disproportionately impacts communities in the majority world, and energy-intensive technologies like generative AI make the problem worse, exacerbating global emissions. Data & Society’s Climate, Technology, and Justice program investigates how technologies impact and influence the environment, and how communities participate in or resist these processes. We examine the social and environmental repercussions of the expanded global infrastructures and labor practices needed to sustain the growth of digital technologies, from AI and blockchain to streaming and data storage. We trace the environmental implications of technology development across the entire life cycle, from ideation and use to disposal or refurbishment. We also seek to better understand the sociotechnical implications of climate-focused technologies, from low-carbon innovations like community energy, solar, and wind turbines, to the integration of algorithms and AI into climate modeling, disaster prediction, and emissions tracking. 

Through cross-team collaboration and partnerships with academic researchers and grassroots organizations, this program explores the full spectrum of environmental concerns connected to the tech industry: its histories, and geographies, including unfair labor practices attached to mining, manufacturing, and shipping logistics; noise, air, land, and water pollution; the resource demands of energy infrastructures and related human rights impacts on local grids and economies; AI applications to expedite fossil fuel extraction; and health impacts like cancer and respiratory illnesses from data center and warehouse proximity or the toxicity associated with electronics manufacturing and e-waste processing. We contrast community-driven climate responses and on-the-ground climate technology use with the financially-driven solutions promoted by the technology and energy industries. From participatory impact assessments of AI’s environmental harms and analyses of how communities on the front lines of climate change and environmental racism are resisting data center encroachment, to interviews with tech worker activists who agitate for their companies to take on and meet climate goals while organizing across the labor supply chain, our researchers are tracking the relationship between the environment and the digital world.

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS

We explore the material impacts of technological industries and innovations, how communities grapple with them, and how they should be assessed and mitigated. Our approach goes beyond quantitative measurements of carbon and water costs to include downstream impacts on communities and ecosystems.  

USE AND REUSE

We examine how communities use and repurpose technologies in their responses to climate change, and document the circular economies attached to the planned obsolescence of technology development, from platformized fast fashion to e-waste refurbishers. 

TROUBLING CLIMATE INNOVATION

We research the data-centric implications of technologies involved in climate response, such as clean energy, disaster prediction, and electric vehicles. By examining how climate technologies interact with everyday life and social practices, we endeavor to diversify the public climate agenda, remove obstacles to adoption, and pursue climate justice. 

Illustration by Myriam Wares. This image is not licensed under Creative Commons.