Instructions for seminar 3 (Thu Oct 3)

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Seminar 3 will be held:

- For group A on Thursday October 3 at 10-12 in L21

- For group B on Thursday October 3 at 10-12 in L22

- For group C on Thursday October 3 at 14-16 in E36

- For group D on Thursday October 3 at 14-16 in E53.

/Daniel

Instructions

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At the seminar, we will look closer at the connection between energy and our daily computing/social media habits. You will also have heard two more lectures relating to this topic. Beyond reading the literature connected to these lectures (here and here), you should prepare for seminar 1 by:

- 1) reading a number of (short) text

- 2) thinking about/writing a seminar question and a "position paper" and

- 3) entering your question and position paper into a Google form

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There are a number of texts you should read, but they are all pretty short:
- Pargman (2009) on The energy footprint of Google searches - published as a blog post in the course companion blog.
- Pargman (2008) on The energy footprint of online avatars - published as a blog post in the course companion blog.
- McAfee's (2009) report on The carbon footprint of spam email.
- Bloomberg's (2013) article on The carbon footprint of Bitcoin ("Virtual Bitcoin mining is a real-world disaster")
- The first 8 pages of Mill's (2013) report "The cloud begins with coal - Big data, big networks, big infrastructure and big power: An overview of the electricity used by the global digital ecosystem". You should read only the first 8 pages - you are welcome to read the rest but it's optional.
- Watch at least the first minute, preferably the first 12 minutes and optionally the whole television program "Bang goes the theory" (Season 1, episode 11, "Human power station").

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Write a seminar question and a position paper (see below). You are free to find a question of your own based on this week's readings and lectures, or you might want to consider the following two questions (which some of you might have discussed when you played GaSuCo):

- Is it sustainable to have free Internet services (mail, twitter, facebook)? Can/should/will such services (by all means include Google searches, calendar services, Youtube etc.) continue to be free?
- From an environmental point of view, what are the pros and cons of Facebook building a huge server hall in northern Sweden?

To gain maximum points on this seminar assignment, you should either:
- write a text that explicitly refers to and makes use of a majority of this week's readings and lectures, or,
- use the seminar texts as a starting point for either doing detective work and updating the examples you  read about above, or, make a back-of-the-envelope calculation of some other example that relates our daily use of ICT/Media technologies to their energy/CO2/environmental footprint. 

Position paper instructions:

- Make a stand (take a position) and write about it in the position paper. Your paper should be between 200-600 words long. Make sure that you in some way refer to and make use of (some of) the lecture/seminar course materials in your paper. It is not the job of the teachers to in detail query and make sure that you have prepared for the seminar - it is your job to convince us that you have.

- There should preferably be some connection between your position paper and your seminar question. Your position paper should ideally lead up to you seminar question, or, your seminar question should be "grounded" and explained in your position paper.

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Please submit your seminar question though this Google form. The deadline is 24 hours before the first seminar groups will meet, i.e. Wednesday October at 10.15. Write/paste your short seminar question and "position paper" directly into the Google form. 

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Lecture 6 - October 1 (10-12) - Baki Cakici

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Time and place: Tuesday October 1, 10-12 in lecture hall V22.

Title: "Designing ICT for future generations: The case of the Stockholm Royal Seaport"

Guest lecturer: Baki Cakici, Researcher at the Swedish Institute of Computer Science (SICS).

Talk: Stockholm Royal Seaport [Norra Djurgårdsstaden] is a future urban district under development in Stockholm. Its designers aim to create a residential area with zero fossil fuel emissions by the year 2030. Using examples from systems proposed for implementation within the district, I will present the potential benefits of ICT in meeting sustainability goals, and discuss some lingering issues that arise when designing technological systems to materialize grand visions.

About: Baki Cakici is a researcher at the Swedish Institute of Computer Science (SICS), Software and Systems Engineering Laboratory. He is also a PhD candidate at Stockholm University, Department of Computer and Systems Sciences. He has previously worked at the Swedish Institute for Communicable Disease Control (Smittskyddsinstitutet) on the design and developemnt of CASE, a computer supported outbreak detection system. He is currently interested in surveillance studies and the critical analysis of information and communication technologies.

Literature: 

- Darby, Sarah. (2010). Smart metering: what potential for householder engagement?. Building Research & Information, Vol.38, No.5, pp.442-457. 

Note: Available in Bilda.

- Suchman, Lucy. (2003). Practice-based design of information systems: Notes from the hyperdeveloped world. The Information Society, Vol.18, No.2, pp.139-144. 

Note: Available in Bilda.

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Lecture 5 - Sept 30 (15-17) - Elina Eriksson

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Time and place: Monday September 30, 15-17 in lecture hall V3.

Title: "Energy, IT and Design"

Lecturer: Elina Eriksson, Researcher at Green Leap, CESC/MID, KTH

Talk: Energy is one of the major issues in the sustainbility discourse, and the question is how media technology and ICT can help (or hinder) lowering our energy consumption and/or lowering our carbon emissions. In this lecture I will talk about the smartness of things, micro-generation of energy and the role that Human-Computer Interaction has to play in the development of the future energy system.

About: Elina Eriksson is working as a researcher at Green Leap and at the Center for Sustainable Communications (CESC) at KTH. She has a PhD in Human-Computer Interaction. Her research interest has been in change issues, and user-centred design. However, on a personal level, the survival of the human race and her children in particular has pushed her into climate-sustainability-zombie anxiety. Now she wants to continue to do research, not only to save the user, but also to save the planet. 

Literature to read before the lecture:

1) Zapico, J, et al. (2007), "Climate persuasive services: changing behavior towards low- carbon lifestyles". Note: available in Bilda.

2) Brynjarsdottir, H, et al. (2012), "Sustainably Unpersuaded: How Persuasion Narrows Our Vision of Sustainability".  Note: available in Bilda.

3) Broms, L, et al. (2010), "Coffee Maker Patterns and the Design of Energy Feedback Artefacts". Note: available in Bilda.

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Instructions for seminar 2 (Thu Sept 26)

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Seminar 2 will be held:

- For group A on Thursday September 26 at 10-12 in E53

- For group B on Thursday September 26 at 10-12 in M33

- For group D on Thursday September 26 at 15-17 in Q21

- For group C on Thursday September 26 at 15-17 in Q26.

/Daniel

You have now learned more about sustainability, about the challenges we are facing and the relationship between computers, ICT and sustainability and you will, at lecture 4 with Jorge Zapico, have started to explore more proactive uses of what can be done for ICT to have a positive impact. At seminar 2 (Thursday Sept 26) we will get more hands-on and we will have a mini Green Hackathon* brainstorming session.

Instructions for seminar 2:

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Everyone should write down an idea that either:

1a. Uses ICT for sustainability purposes in terms of efficiency, dematerialization, visualization, lifestyle changes... (see the literature for Lecture 4), or,

1b. Reduces the impact of ICT through green IT, optimization, new ways of using IT, reduction...

- Your idea can describe a new application or service, improvements to existing things, remixes and mash-ups, new initiatives...

- The description of your idea should be comprehensive, around 200-400 words, and it should include some background information about the problem to be solved and some background research on similar ideas and attempts to solve it.
- Your idea should be somewhat original, meaning that if your idea is something like using smart meters to visualize electricity consumption (i.e. something which it has already been explored by other projects), your idea has to be a little more concrete such as exploring a specific aspect or idea of implementation.

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Please submit your idea though this Google form. Since there is such a short time between Jorge's lecture and the seminar, the deadline for completing this task is postponed this week and the deadline for submitting your idea is Wednesday September 25 at midnight. 

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During the seminar we will discuss your different ideas and improve them together in an iterative process. Each idea will be presented and we will use different "lenses" to explore problems and possibilities of each idea:

- Environmental lens: How does it affect the environment (in terms of direct/indirect, planned/unplanned effects etc.)?

- Simplicity lens: Do we really need this? Can it be done with less technology? Cust it be done at all?

- Social lens: How does this affect people? Communities? Society? Does it make their life more complicated? Can it have unexpected consequences?

- Feasibility lens: How can it be implemented? Does it have an economic model? Are there/what are the technical challenges?

* Green Hackathon is a series of events that we started at KTH where developers meet and create applications and prototypes with a sustainability purpose. You can read more information and have a look at the hacks created at: http://greenhackathon.com.

Lecture 4 - Sept 24 (15-17) - Jorge Zapico

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Time and place: Tuesday September 24, 15-17 in lecture hall B2. Note: Your schedule will indicate that the lecture is four hours long. That is not the case, the lecture will be given between 15-17!  

Title: "Hacking sustainability: using ICT for sustainability"

By: Jorge Zapico, MID/CESC KTH

Talk: In this lecture we will explore the relationships and effects of ICT and media technologies on sustainability, not only from a technical perspective, but also from a cultural point of view. The focus is on exploring what we can proactively do as media practitioners, coders, designers and users to exploit the positive effects of information technologies, and what we need to beware of. We will look at different areas of opportunities, and go through examples of projects that work in these directions.

About: Jorge Zapico is a researcher and PhD candidate at KTH at Media technology and interaction design, the Centre for Sustainable Communications, and the department of Industrial Ecology. His research concerns the relationship of ICT and sustainability and using data as a tool for sustainability. He is also co-organizer of the Green Hackathon series of events.

Literature:

1) Hilty, L. (2008).  Information Technology and Sustainability: Essays on the relationship between information technology and sustainable development, Chapter 7, "A conceptual framework for ICT effects on sustainability". Available in Bilda.

2) Hilty, L. (2008).  Information Technology and Sustainability: Essays on the relationship between information technology and sustainable development, Chapter 8, "Steps towards a Sustainable Information Society". Available in Bilda.

3) Zapico, J. (2013). The hacker ethic, openness and sustainability. Download here. Chapter in: The open book, Open Knowledge Foundation.

4) Zapico, J., Brandt, N., Turpeinen, M. (2010) Environmental Metrics: The Main Opportunity from ICT for Industrial Ecology. Journal of Industrial Ecology 14, 703-706. Short paper, download here.

Extra/optional literature on these topics:

- The climate group and Gesi (2008) “Smart 2020”  Download.
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Lecture 3 - Sept 23 (15-17) - Shakila Umair

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Time and place: Monday September 23, 15-17 in lecture hall B3.

Title: "Information recycling of electronic waste in Pakistan"

Guest: Shakila Umair, Guest researcher at CESC/FMS, KTH

Talk: Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have been connecting people for years. Today more and more people have access to these ICTs and they want the best. Producers are coming up with the new technologies every day and as each new gadget or technology reaches the market, something older becomes obsolete. Obsolete electronic equipment, "e-waste", is the fastest growing waste stream today. Of all e-waste produced, only 20% is recycled formally and the rest is dumped in developing countries where it is recycled informally. Pakistan is one of the countries at the receiving end of this waste stream and it is one of the world's largest importers of e-waste. E-waste in Pakistan is recycled by crude processes which includes manual dismantling, open burning and acid processing of motherboards for the extraction of precious metals. These processes have impacts not just on the environment and on the people involved in this business, but also on the communities living in the vicinity of these sites. This lecture highlights the processes and the impacts of informal e-waste recycling in Pakistan.

About: Shakila Umair is working as a guest researcher at the Center for Sustainable Communications (CESC)/FMS at KTH has has previously worked at Lund University Centre for Sustainable Studies (LUCSUS). She has been working with informal recycling of e-waste in Pakistan for about three years. She has a master's degree in environmental engineering and sustainable infrastructure with a major in environmental strategies from KTH. She has worked with the United Nations Development Programme and the World Wide Fund for Nature Conservation (WWF) in Pakistan.

Literature to read before the lecture:

1) Umair, S. and Anderberg, S. (2011). "Ewaste imports and informal recycling in Pakistan - A multidimensional governance challenge". Available in Bilda.

While the lecture will primarily concern e-waste, the literature (below) will also cover other "first order" or "primary" effects of ICT (i.e. the environmental impact of mining, manufacturing, use, disposal and recycling of ICT hardware).

2) Instead of reading the paper, you should watch this 10-minute long presentation of the paper "Scarce metals as raw materials for ICTs: Do we care enough?" by P. Wägner and R. Widmer (2013). The paper was presented at the first international conference on information and communication technologies for sustainability (ICT4S) which was held in Zürich earlier this year. For some reason, the sound disappears during the last minute of the video (sorry for that).

3) Raghavan, B. and Hasan, S. (2012). "Macroscopically sustainable networking: An Internet quine". International Computer Science Institute report, TR-12-010. Available on the Internet (pdf).

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Seminar participation and grading

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I promised to get back with info about how we will grade the 4 points you can get at each seminar. I have updated the document "Course examination and grading" in Bilda - there is now a new version there ("130915 Course examination and grading.pdf".

You don't need to check out that document though, I have pasted the relevant part below and the new text about the seminars is marked in orange below.

/Daniel

Attendance and participation

The course covers a topic that, beyond a hard core of scientific facts, is rife with values and differing opinions. The purpose of the course is not to get people to acquire certain opinions (although that might be a side effect), but rather to gain a basic understanding of the topic of sustainability and to make connections to media/information and communications technologies (ICT). In the interest of fostering an open discussion climate, a large part (56%) of the course is examined through preparation, attendance and participation in course activities (lectures and seminars).

As a student, you have to participate in 80% of the scheduled course activities (10 lectures and 5 seminars) in order to get top points in the course. Attendance and participation that falls below the 80% threshold will have adverse effects on grades (e.g attendance at 5/10 lectures = 7.5/12 points for lecture attendance).

Furthermore, it is crucial to (according to instructions given) actually prepare for and actively participate in the seminars in order to gain top points at each seminar. Since you have the chance to earn as much as 4 points at each seminar (corresponding to 8% of the total score that is possible to attain in the course), the score for a seminar has been broken down as follows:

• Preparing for the seminar by submitting a seminar question – 0.5 points
• Preparing for the seminar by submitting a “position paper”[1] – 1.5 points (you will be awarded 0, 0.5, 1 or 1.5 points depending on the merit and quality of your position paper)
• Attending the seminar – 1 point
• Attending the seminar and actively contributing to it – 1 point

Note: if you attend a seminar without in any way contributing to the seminar discussions, you will only get 1 point for your attendance.

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[1] For more information about ”position papers”, see http://dm2573-2013.blogspot.se/2013/09/instructions-for-seminar-1-thu-sept-19.html

Instructions for seminar 1 (Thu Sept 19 & Fri Sept 20)

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Seminar 1 will be held:

- For group A on Thursday September 19 at 10-12 in Q22

- For group B on Thursday September 19 at 10-12 in Q26

- For group D on Thursday September 19 at 13-15 in M36

- For group C on Friday September 20 at 13-15 in E33. All future seminars in the course will be held on Thursdays.

/Daniel

Instructions

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You have read texts, seen films and will by Tuesday (Sept 17) have heard two more lectures about energy and resource challenges. Beyond reading the literature connected to these lectures (here and here), you should prepare for seminar 1 by:

- 1) watching an additional movie (a 16 minute long TED talk)

- 2) reading a text

- 3) thinking about/writing a seminar question and a "position paper" and

- 4) entering your question and position paper into a Google form

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The movie (TED talk) you should watch is:

- Hopkins, Rob, Transition to a world without oil (2009).

Optional: if you want to, you can also have a look at the 16 minutes long TED talk counterargument by Peter Diamandis, Abundance is our future (2012).

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The text you should read is:

- Tomlinson, Silberman, Patterson, Pan & Blevis (2012), "Collapse informatics: Augmenting the sustainability and ICT4D discourse in HCI" (pdf file here). The paper was presented at the CHI conference last year (the largest and most prestigious conference in the field of Human-Computer Interaction) and it received the "best paper award" at the conference.

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As a starting point for your seminar question, please consider the following questions :

Is it prudent (wise) for individuals, companies and/or societies to prepare for a future of materials and energy scarcity and/or negative economic growth - or is it just plain stupid? Why? Furthermore, if these are issues that we should care and think about, do you have any suggestions for possible implications for ICT and media (production, distribution, use, disposal)?

Although it can be difficult, you might also consider what (if any) the implications are for you in the future that you personally think we are most likely to face.

Perhaps the question above is too direct and too big? Then here is an alternative, slightly more analytical and roundabout way of thinking about the same issues:

- Try to identify the Dahlin-Hagens-Pargman-course literature "discourse" (the set of interlinking ideas and underlying assumptions). You can use these four questions below as a starting point:

- What, according to this discourse, is to be considered a problem?

- What is to be considered a feasible conclusion?

- What is to be prioritized?

- What are your personal opinions as to these matters?

It is suggested that you use one (or some) of the specific questions above as your starting point when you formulate your seminar question. Your seminar question should be a question that you think is suitable to discuss in class/at the seminar. Your seminar question should be relatively brief (1-2 sentences long).

Position paper instructions:

- Make a stand (take a position) and write about it in the position paper. Your paper should be between 200-400 words long. Make sure that you in some way refer to and make use of (some of) the lecture/seminar course materials in your paper. It is not the job of the teachers to in detail query and make sure that you have prepared for the seminar - it is your job to convince us that you have.

- There should preferably be some connection between your position paper and your seminar question. Your position paper should ideally lead up to you seminar question, or, your seminar question should be "grounded" and explained in your position paper.

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Please submit your seminar question though this Google form. The deadline is 24 hours before the first seminar groups will meet, i.e. Wednesday September 18 at 10.15. Write/paste your short seminar question and "position paper" directly into the Google form. 

IMPORTANT. Since you have the chance to earn as much as 4 points for each seminar (corresponding to 8% of the total score that is possible to attain in the course), your seminar position papers will be graded (0 - 0.5 - 1 - 1.5 points). I will write a separate blog post about this but didn't have time before the weekend so keep an eye on the blog in the beginning of next week for more information.

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On the seminar groups

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There are four seminar groups (A, B, C, D). As most of you heard at the lecture earlier today, the regular time slot for seminar groups A and B are Thursdays before lunch (10-12). The regular time slots for seminar groups C and D are Thursdays after lunch (13-15).

Seminar groups A and C will have Daniel as their seminar leader and seminar groups B and D will have Elina as their seminar leader.

When the schedule states that will use seminar rooms Q22 and Q26 (as is the case Thursday Sept 19 between 10-12), group A will convene in Q22 and group C will convene in Q26. This can be important to remember, for example the following week (Thursday Sept 26) when seminar group A will convene in E53 and seminar group B will convene in M33 (i.e. another building).
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Lecture 2 - Sept 17 (8-10) - Daniel Pargman

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Time and place: Tuesday September 19, 8-13 in lecture hall D3.

Title: "Global resource challenges and implications for ICT and media"

Guest: Daniel Pargman, Assistant Professor in Media Technology at the School for Computer Science and Communication, KTH

Talk: You have by now heard lectures focusing on the meaning of sustainability and challenges regarding climate change (CO2 emissions, global environmental challenges etc.). I will try to convince you that resource challenges and a global "energy crunch" will pose a more immediate concern than the (possibly more serious, but also acting on a longer time horizon) challenge of climate change - even though these two issues are tightly linked.

The first part of the lecture will concern resource and energy issues (especially "peak oil"). The second part will discuss implications for ICT and media technologies. Note: the first part of the lecture will use an "unorthodox" lecture format (see the instructions below).

About: Daniel Pargman is Assistant Professor in Media Technology at the KTH School of Computer Science and Communication. His research interests concerns social media, virtual communities, Internet culture, sustainability and resource challenges. He is a member of the steering committee for the KTH VINN ExcellenceCenter for Sustainable Communications (CESC).

Instructions and literature to read before the lecture:

1) Start by looking at the 35 minutes long film with the not-so-uplifting name "There's no tomorrow" (below). Please do not look at it on your smartphone while you're on the move. The film is packed with information, so treat it the same way you would treat a complex text (or a math problem). Concentrate on the movie and keep paper and a pencil at hand in order to write down any questions or thoughts that the film raises (the message is very grim and it should raise many questions and perhaps objections). The first part of the lecture will partly be based on the questions you bring to class. The movie below is "backed up" by two texts that you should read (see further below).

2) Rubin, Jeff (2009), "Why your world is about to get a whole lot smaller: Oil and the end of globalization". Chapter 1, "Redefining recovery". Note: available in Bilda.

3) Heinberg, Richard (2003), "The party's over: Oil, war and the fate of industrial societies". Parts of chapter 1 ("Energy, nature and society") and chapter 2 ("Party time: The historic interval of cheap, abundant energy". Note: available in Bilda.

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Lecture 1 - Sept 16 (15-17) - Nate Hagens

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Time and place: Monday September 16 at 15-17 in lecture hall B2. Do note that our guest will participate remotely (from the US) and that he will be "present" through the modern wonders of ICT/Media Technologies. The lecture is two hours long but we have booked the lecture hall for four hours.

Title: "Human behavior meets limits to growth: Constraints and opportunities"

Guest: Nate Hagens, Ph.D., US Director of the Institute for Integrated Economic Research (IIER)

Talk: When discussing resource limits, most attention goes to the supply side; energy limits and environmental sink capacity. Less attention is given to the human biological drivers of our predicament, why we are slow to act on it, and what can be done about it. In this lecture we will have an overview of evolved human behavioral traits that contribute to continued overconsumption of resources on a full planet, how our current stimuli laden culture "hijacks" our brains into using more resources, and why the problems facing humanity are in many ways psychological and social as opposed to physical.

About: Nate has a Masters in Finance from the University of Chicago and a Ph.D. in Natural Resources from the University of Vermont. He is currently the US Director of the Institute for Integrated Economic Research where models are developed integrating energy, resources, finance, economics, trade and human behavior in an attempt to aid policy in what is likely the end of the global economic growth era. Without knowing the larger picture, a focus on smaller pieces end up being ineffective. Nate used to manage a small hedge fund on Wall Street and has worked at investment banks Salomon Brothers and Lehman Brothers.

Literature to read before the lecture:

- Hagens, Nate (2011). The psychological roots of resource overconsumption, in "Fleeing Vesuvius: Overcoming the risks of economic and environmental collapse", edited by Richard Douthwaite and Gillian Fallon (pp. 336-355). New Society Publishers.

Note: Available in Bilda.

- Hages, Nate (2007). Peak Oil - Believe it or not? (14 pages, available online). Published online in the discussion forum The Oil Drum.

- Hagens, Nate (2007). Climate change, Saber tooth tigers and devaluing the future (10 pages, available online) Published online in the discussion forum The Oil Drum.

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