Tech Is Killing Us Softly pt2

Advancement seems great, look at the underlying concerns con't

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, listeners, I cannot thank you enough for stopping by
for another episode of the Tech Versus Humanity Podcast, a
show dedicated to the ongoing struggle between humanity and its technology.
You should be aware that today's episode is a continuation

(00:20):
of last week's episode. We got into a topic far
too vast for a single episode. We started talking about
how tech is actually killing us. We talked about electronic

(00:43):
and digital technology causing pollution, contamination. We talked about even
digital carbon footprints. We talked about battery pollution and consumer
and electronic every day devices. We talked about wireless radiation EMF.

(01:06):
We even talked about packaging waste. We talked about how
transportation and mobility tech is killing us, such as vehicle emissions,
and today we're going to pick it up with electric
vehicle waste. Everybody thinks evs are going green, well, folks,

(01:31):
As with everything, there's some give and take in a
little bit of a trade off. What do you do
with your bad batteries? Battery disposal For large EV batteries
are difficult to recycle. They may end up in landfills.

(01:55):
EV production emits fifteen to seventy percent more COTO two
initially then gas cars due to intensive mining. Global demand
for lithium tripled in under a decade, stressing environments in Bolivia,
Chile and Australia. Autonomous vehicle infrastructure require massive computing power

(02:24):
and cloud support, indirectly raising emissions. Sensor e waste from
lidar and radar and vision modules decrade quickly with weather exposure.
An asphalt from smart roads with embedded tech often contains
non recyclable compounds, increased light and thermal pollution. The entire

(02:51):
industrial and manufacturing tech sector alone, such as industrial wastewater
electronics industry, uses solvents, acids, and metal cleaners. They discharge
high cod cyanide, lead, and fluoride. Some examples like fox

(03:15):
Con and Apple suppliers in Asia are cited for illegal
discharges into rivers. The cleanup costs are often externalized to
local governments or communities. Tech factories cause massive amounts of

(03:35):
air pollution. Main pollutants include VOCs, ozone precursors, sulfur and
nitrogen oxides, semiconductor etching releases PFCs. These are ten thousand
times more potent than CO two. Workers exposed to airborne

(03:55):
toxins suffer from cancer clusters as seen in Samsung's early FABS.
Waste from three D printing, like abs PLA resins, some
are biodegradable, most are not. Ultra fine particles ufps are

(04:15):
linked to lung inflammation and oxidative stress. There are disposal
issues with failed prints, support structures, and print bed adhesives.
They are rarely recycled, even the Internet and AI and
other emerging technologies just because their computer driven are not

(04:39):
free from waste. GPT three training equals five hundred and
fifty two metric tons of CO two. This is the
equivalent to one hundred and twenty five round trip flights
to New York and London. There are repeating model updates.

(05:01):
Retraining only adds to the carbon load. What are the
ethical concerns of increasing environmental costs versus social value of AI?
Bitcoin networks consume one hundred tea wants a year, that's

(05:22):
more than Argentina. They are high carbon intensity when powered
by coal heavy grids. ASIC minors are obsolete within one
to two years, leading to tons of high grade E waste,

(05:43):
and massive server farms produce constant, low frequency humes leading
to noise pollution. Smart cities and Internet of things don't
necessarily mean green either. They have their own associated waste.
Sensors have short life spend, poor recyclability, and are made

(06:03):
with rare metals. Urban waste from obsolete smart meters, led systems,
traffic management hardware goes into trash, which goes to the landfill,
and software driven hardware is obsolescence by firmware updates, which
means forced disposal. Even science and medical tech that's trying

(06:31):
to make us better is potentially causing us harm. Loads
of waste from bioteching labs, biological samples, chemical ray agents,
gene editing residues, all hazardous waste, plastic use from pipeds, gloves,
petri dishes are ninety nine percent single use. There are

(06:56):
disposal challenges. These items must be incinerated or chemically treated,
generating secondary pollution. Radiological medicine has loads of pollution X
ray MRI, CT scan units and radioactive tracers. What to

(07:18):
do with those when they are obsolete? Disposed of These
cause hot zones and some isotopes like caesium one thirty seven,
remain dangerous for decades. These lead to environmental paradoxes such

(07:40):
as green tech. Even solar panel waste like cadmium lead
and eva laminates. The life cycles for solar panels are
only twenty to thirty years, then they must be stripped
and sorted. This leads to landfill risks. If not dismantled properly,
toxically occurs. There is inadequate recycling infrastructure in most countries

(08:06):
due to cost. When turbine blades must be replaced frequently,
what to do with them? They're gargantuine fiberglass reinforced with
epoxy resin. It's difficult to grind or repurpose. The current
solution is burial in special blade landfills. Emerging fixes are

(08:30):
thermoplastic blades, but adoption is slow and expensive. All of
this has led to greenwashing and tech marketing products says
eco friendly with misleading data or token programs. For example,
carbon neutral claims by offsetting not reducing emissions and minimal

(08:56):
recycling schemes are used to justify massive production runs. There's
usually regulatory pushback, such as in Europe and California beginning
to crack down on false eco labels. Next, Space debris
and orbital pollution spoiler alert. Most of the stuff we've

(09:19):
launched into space still up there, defunct satellites, spent rocket stages,
bolts and fragments all orbiting Earth. These all came from
rapid satellite launches, collisions, or anti satellite missile tests. This

(09:41):
is posing a threat to space based attech, both weather
and communication. There is a risk of Kessler syndrome, a
runaway cascade of orbital collisions, an atmospheric pollution when large
debris burns up during re entry such as aluminum oxide,
black carbon, and the future risk of pollution of exoplanetary

(10:04):
orbits off space colonization expands. Without strict debris control will ensue. Unfortunately,
that's all the time that we've got for today's episode
of the Tech Versus Humanity podcast. With every good comes bad, folks,
it's important to be aware and strive to find better

(10:25):
ways to do things until next time. I can't thank
you enough for listening until then.