Environmental Engineering Reference
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Reporters sans Frontieres (Reporters without Borders), have taken the
lead in defending free access to and free production of Internet sites
(see also Chapters 9 and 10 ). Third, and finally, although the accep-
tance and glorification of the computer/Internet is widespread among
the greens in developed regions, recently a discussion has emerged on
the environmental justice effects of the computer technology and ICT
system, focusing on the environmental impacts of computer produc-
tion in peripheral regions, on labour conditions at various production
sites in developing countries and the dumping and 'recycling' of espe-
cially U.S. 6 electronics waste in the South (cf. Smith, Sonnenfeld and
Pellow, 2006 ). These worries refer back to the original environmental
assessment of the Information Society, as reviewed in Chapters 1 and
2 , with the difference that now the emphasis is on the environmental
side effects of the ICT revolution in developing countries, and less so
in the North. Although the environmental side effects of Silicon Valley
have been known for a while, it has been especially the displacement of
the consequences for environment and labour conditions to develop-
ing countries and regions - with the fruits to be found in the hubs and
nodes of the global networked economy - that triggered recent debates
(see Box 8.1 ).
Consequences of ICT for local environmental organisations
It is remarkable to see how often research on the use of ICT by, and on
the consequences of ICT for, social movements take the green move-
ment as an example (especially as the environment has been lacking
in the Information Society/Age studies). For example, a volume on the
(new) culture and politics of the information age, edited by Webster
( 2001a ), is almost completely on environmental NGOs. Also, the intro-
duction to a more recent volume on cyberprotests by social movements
(van de Donk et al., 2004a ) starts with the environmental movement
as the main example. There seems to be a wide - although unarticu-
lated - feeling that the environmental movement is a useful yardstick
to investigate and assess the consequences of ICT and the Internet for
6
This is less true, for instance, for European electronics and computer waste, as a
result of more stringent EU regulations on waste (cf. the Directive 2002/96/EC
of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 January 2003 on Waste
Electrical and Electronic Equipment).
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