Activists warn of new perils emerging in the
digital age
By JOHN L. ALLEN JR., NCR
Staff
At the time, few connected the invention of the automobile with
the decay of the inner city. Most historians agree, however, that by enabling
middle-class flight to the suburbs, cars helped trigger the decline of
Americas urban centers. The poor, stuck downtown, ended up on the
underside of progress.
Technological change is like that -- it produces unanticipated
winners and losers. And today, activists concerned with the impact of
cyberspace see warning signs of possible dangers ahead: ghost towns where local
business and social centers used to be, toxic waste sites oozing with the
chemicals used to churn out ever-faster generations of microchips or landfills
groaning with millions of obsolete PCs.
If the bishops who met recently in Denver to consider the ethics
of cyberspace want to do some heavy intellectual lifting, such activists say,
they might want to start by thinking about how such outcomes might be avoided
now, while its still under our control.
In late March, nearly 60 bishops from North and South America and
the Vatican came together in Denver for a three-day conference on the new media
technologies. Most spoke of the need to bring an ethical perspective to the
often-confusing world of technological change (NCR April 17).
Observers who track justice issues related to computing and media
generally welcomed the interest. These technologies can turn our lives
inside out, said Richard Sclove. They have the potential to
dismantle face-to-face social communication and civil life. Its good to
see anyone waking up to the issue.
While some needs are clear and compelling, like ensuring universal
access to the Internet to avoid fracturing into a nation of information haves
and have-nots, Sclove is concerned with less obvious matters. He runs the
nonprofit Loka Institute (http://www.loka.org/)in Amherst, Mass., which
advocates democratic approaches to shaping science and technology policy.
Cybernetic Wal-Mart
Sclove is worried about the impact of unregulated online commerce.
He predicts a cybernetic Wal-Mart effect, arguing that as more
goods become available online, with a far wider range of choices and lower
prices, more people will make purchases that way -- thus undermining local
businesses.
Sclove doesnt back away from the protectionistic thrust of
this argument, advocating taxation of online purchases. He would use the
revenue such taxes generate to stabilize local economic and cultural
activity. Sclove said hes pessimistic about such policies being
adopted, noting that the Clinton administration prefers a free
market approach to the budding online economy.
In mid-April the U.S. Commerce Department issued a major study on
the economics of the Internet(http://www.ecommerce.gov/emerging.htm). It
projects that online business-to-business commerce alone could reach $300
billion by 2002, representing 3 percent of the gross domestic product. Though
it offers no hard estimates for consumer transactions, the report predicts that
the sale and transmission of goods and services electronically will
exceed business-to-business traffic, making it the largest and most
visible driver of the new digital economy.
Rachelle Hollander, head of the National Science Foundations
program in Societal Dimensions of Engineering, Science and
Technology, (http://www.nsf.gov/sbe/redirect.htm)says that people
need to act to preserve their values, especially those of democracy and
community, amid this economic shift. We have to maintain communities, use
this new tool to enhance rather than retard that aim, she said.
Sclove suggests that video rental rates and Internet access rates
be raised substantially one night a week, high enough to discourage people from
watching TV or surfing the Net. That way, he reasons, theyd be more
likely to spend time with one another.
Sclove said that such a policy would initially be experienced as,
Youre taking something away. But the Net is already taking away our
social and community life, the part of their lives people have most treasured
and prized, he said.
Cyberspace, Sclove believes, also brings with it a new set of
labor issues. Because theres no strong union movement in this
country, theres a danger of hyper-exploitation of workers, he
said.
As a remedy, Sclove suggests creating neighborhood telecommuting
centers, with gyms, day care and coffeehouses in addition to work stations as a
way to maintain social life in an era of work-from-home. He also suggests labor
regulations that would limit or prevent electronic monitoring of
telecommuters.
Other activists are concerned less with how computers are used
than with how theyre made. Despite the temptation to think of computing
as an ethereal activity, the materials used to manufacture PCs are very
physical -- and often quite dangerous.
More than 700 chemical compounds are used to make one computer
work station, according to the Silicon Valley Toxics
Coalition(http://www.svtc.org/), an environmental advocacy group that
monitors the computing and high-tech industries. The coalition argues that the
high toxicity of these chemicals (such as dioxins and benzene), the intense
pressure to get to market quickly and the rapid growth of the industry form a
potentially lethal combination for workers and the environment.
The group originated in 1982, when underground tanks storing
chemicals used by one semiconductor manufacturer leaked into groundwater,
followed shortly by an unusual cluster of birth defects in the Silicon Valley
area. It busted the lid on the notion of electronics being a clean
industry, said program director Leslie Byster.
Today, Californias Santa Clara County -- Silicon
Valley -- has a total of 27 superfund sites, which are places designated
by the Environmental Protection Agency for cleanup of contaminated soil and
water. Thats the highest number of sites of any county in the United
States -- and 24 of those 27 sites are directly related to the electronics
industry, according to Byster.
Its very chemical-intensive, Byster said.
Lots of the chemicals used to make microchips, for example, have
reproductive and carcinogenic effects. The coalition contends that
exposure to such chemicals has an adverse impact on high-tech workers, claiming
that rates of illness in the electronics industry are three times higher than
in other manufacturing industries.
Ironically, computer manufacturers take Herculean measures to
protect microchips from human beings. As chips get smaller and smaller,
they require more and more contamination-free environments, Byster said.
One flake of skin can ruin an entire batch. As a result, companies
create so-called clean rooms to safeguard their products.
These clean rooms do a much better job of protecting the
chips from the workers than the workers from the chips, Byster said,
noting that despite all the expensive measures to keep the chips safe, workers
are still routinely exposed to hazardous materials before and after
production.
Computer manufacturers also tend to be heavy users of water -- the
production of a single eight-inch wafer, for example, generates 3,787 gallons
of waste water according to statistics presented at a symposium on
semi-conductor manufacturing in 1993. One high-tech facility in New Mexico
alone, Byster said, goes through 1.6 billion gallons of water a year -- 5
million gallons a day on some days. In a desert area, that cant
help but have a huge environmental impact, she said.
Joel Makower, who edits a business newsletter from Washington,
said that computer companies have tried to clean up their act. The
industry as a whole is doing a pretty good job in addressing environmental
concerns, with impressive changes already achieved and more to come, he
said, pointing as an example to the elimination of chlorofluorocarbons in the
process of cleaning circuit boards. Further, Makower said, the industry has
learned that being environmentally responsible can save money in the long run,
avoiding expensive litigation and cleanups.
Explosive growth
The problem, both Makower and Byster said, is that explosive
growth in the industry is overwhelming everything else -- including the time it
takes to do adequate studies of environmental impact and worker safety.
Bysters coalition estimates that up to 140 new semiconductor
manufacturing plants, costing $1 billion to $3 billion each, will be built
worldwide before the turn of the century.
The disposal of used computers is a burgeoning environmental
problem all by itself. Americans throw away 10 million used PCs a year --
Makower quoted a Carnegie-Mellon study
(http://www.ce.cmu.edu/GreenDesign/comprec/index.html)that claims
landfills could be choking with as many as 150 million used PCs by 2005.
Each discarded computer is chock full of hazardous chemicals. The
Silicon Valley coalition said theres a growing international trade in the
disposal of used PCs. Many are shipped to China, Byster said, and burned there,
releasing their chemicals into the air. Only 3 percent of electronic junk is
presently being recycled.
Take-backs advocated
Its in this context that activists are pressing the industry
to adopt take-back provisions, in lieu of government regulations forcing them
to do so. In Europe, governments are increasingly requiring PC manufacturers to
take back their used products and to reuse them. No such laws exist in the
United States and are unlikely, Makower said, in the current
laissez faire political climate. But Byster said such recycling is critical to
sustainable growth.
Byster also suggests that computer manufacturers be required to
recycle water -- genuine, closed-loop recycling in the manufacturing process,
she said, not just we use it to water our lawns.
Its important that people concerned with justice monitor the
computing industry not just in the United States, Byster said, but
internationally. She pointed to an Intel plant currently under construction in
Costa Rica, where lead-intensive manufacturing will be occurring right on top
of Artesian wells that form part of an aquifer.
The field is growing so fast, chips are changing so much,
there just isnt time to do adequate toxicological assessments,
Byster said.
An Intel spokesperson disputed the claim, arguing that the company
has taken extensive measures to prevent both ground and surface
water contamination at the new Costa Rican site. We completed the
countrys first environmental impact statement specifically for this
plant, said Bill Calder, public relations officer.
Calder also said that the plant will generate only a minimal
amount of lead waste. Were talking about some alcohol wipes that
will get put in drums and shipped off ... maybe a couple of drums a year,
he said. Were not talking about buckets of raw lead.
Byster believes high-tech companies can do better. The
industry needs to care more about the next generation of children than about
the next generation of chips. They have the resources and the technology to do
that, she said.
If they can figure out how to make a chip that runs at 1,000
megahertz, they can figure out how to recycle water.
National Catholic Reporter, May 1, 1998
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