Information Systems and the Environment (2001) / Chapter Skim
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The Information Revolution and Sustainability: Mutually Reinforcing Dimensions of the Human Future
The Information Revolution and Sustainability: Mutually Reinforcing Dimensions of the Human Future
Pages 15-44
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From page 15... ...
These complex systems within systems require the generation and use of a wide range of information and feedback mechanisms. The examination of this evolution suggests wider implications for the information revolution and sustainability.
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From page 16... ...
Impressively, these gains have been matched by similar increases in environmental efficiency: Since controls were introduced in 1968, volatile organic chemicals and carbon monoxide emissions per vehicle have been reduced by some 96 percent, and, since the imposition of nitrous oxide controls in 1972, emissions of those species have been reduced by over 75 percent (MacKenzie, 1994~. In short, over the past two and a half decades, one of the principal and defining artifacts of the modern industrial economy has undergone an almost revolutionary change.
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From page 17... ...
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From page 18... ...
This would, in essence, integrate the automotive built infrastructure, the automobile, and the driver as one automotive transportation system, which in turn can be optimized to provide realtime efficiency by, for example, using time-of-day and location sensitive automatic roadway pricing (Jurgen, 1995~. In fact, at the Cyberhome exhibit in San Francisco in 1997, Mercedes-Benz displayed a multimedia concept car, linked to the Internet with speech recognition capabilities, a voice-controlled browser, global positioning system capability, and its own internal local-area network.
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From page 19... ...
THE INFORMATION REVOLUTION AND SUSTAINABILITY IN CONTEXT The parable of the automobile suggests a fundamental convolution of the Information Revolution and sustainability: that greater environmental efficiency will require, as an enabling capability, the Information Revolution, and that the latter, in turn, will be strongly encouraged by the need for greater environmental efficiency. Here, of course, environmental efficiency is not taken as the usual green technology but, rather, as the reengineering of the Industrial Revolution suggested by the nascent, integrative science of industrial ecology.
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From page 20... ...
20 by o EM an an an Cq Cq A be o A Em A o V, :" sit o x ;^ o o o ;^ o ho En ~ ca o ~ _4 ·n O~ ~ o O R ;^ O ·^0 ~ e ~= ~ _ 13 ,, c ~ ~ t~o.
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From page 21... ...
It is also important ab initio to recognize that the information infrastructure that supports information services of all kinds, from sensor systems to telecommunications, itself is not without environmental cost. For example, part of the cost of the increased efficiency of the automobile is the consumption by that sector of some 12 percent of the printed wiring boards produced in the United States annually (compared with about 39 percent that go into computational devices)
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From page 22... ...
Thus, the environmental impacts of the platforms by which information services are provided are at last beginning to be addressed. EMERGENCE OF THE INFORMATION INDUSTRY Several salient points are now apparent about the Information Revolution.
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From page 24... ...
47. TABLE 3 Major Standard Industrial Classification Divisions and Groups Representing the Service Sectors Classification Code Production Sectors Division A Agriculture, forestry, and fishing Division B Mining Division C Construction Division D Manufacturing Service Sectors Division E Transportation, communications, electric, gas, and sanitary services Major Group 40 Railroad transportation Major Group 41 Local and suburban transit and interurban highway passenger transportation Major Group 42 Motor freight transportation and warehousing Major Group 43 U.S.
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From page 25... ...
THE INFORMATION REVOLUTION AND SUSTAINABILITY TABLE 3 continued 25 Code Classification Division G Retail trade Major Group 52 Building materials, hardware, garden supply, and mobile homes Major Group 53 General merchandise stores Major Group 54 Food stores Major Group 55 Automotive dealers and gasoline service stations Major Group 56 Apparel and accessory stores Major Group 57 Home furniture, finishings, and equipment stores Major Group 58 Eating and drinking places Major Group 59 Miscellaneous retail Division H Finance, insurance, and real estate Major Group 60 Depository institutions Major Group 61 Nondepository credit institutions Major Group 62 Security and commodity brokers, dealers, exchanges, and services Major Group 63 Insurance carriers Major Group 64 Insurance agents, brokers, and services Major Group 65 Real estate Major Group 67 Holding and other investment offices Division I Services Major Group 70 Hotels, rooming houses, camps, and other lodging places Major Group 72 Personal services Major Group 73 Business services Major Group 75 Automotive repair, services, and parking Major Group 76 Miscellaneous repair services Major Group 78 Motion pictures Major Group 79 Amusement and recreation services Major Group 80 Health services Major Group 81 Legal services Major Group 82 Educational services Major Group 83 Social services Major Group 84 Museums, art galleries, and botanical and zoological gardens Major Group 86 Membership organizations Major Group 87 Engineering, accounting, research, management, and related services Major Group 88 Private households Major Group 89 Miscellaneous services Division J Public administration Major Group 91 Executive, legislative, and general government, except finance Major Group 92 Justice, public order, and safety Major Group 94 Administration of human resource programs Major Group 95 Administration of environmental quality and housing programs Major Group 96 Administration of economic programs Major Group 97 National security and international affairs Division K Nonclassifiable establishments SOURCE: Bureau of the Census, 1996.
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From page 26... ...
There are some indications that this is, in fact, occurring: Some 80 percent of all information technology in the United States, for example, is purchased and used by the service sector (Rejeski, 1997~. Nonetheless, our understanding of, and ability to assess, this process is quite limited at this preliminary juncture, and it would be premature to draw any firm conclusions.
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From page 27... ...
. RELEVANT TRENDS IN THE INFORMATION INDUSTRY Several trends in the information industry stand out and tend to suggest continued substitution of information for other inputs into the economy.
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From page 28... ...
, and by the number of new subscribers to information services such as cellular telephones (Figure 8~. Although the data are hard to evaluate, this is apparently leading to substantial growth in information stocks, most particularly in new electronic media as opposed to traditional hard media such as books (Figure 9~.
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From page 29... ...
Devolumization 0.1- 1 1 1980 1985 1990 Year Economic Efficiency 1 1 1 995 2000 \ \ `~' 100 - \ I, 1 10 0.01 1 1 1 1 1 1980 1985 1990 Year 1- 1 1 1995 2000 1980 1985 1990 Year 1 995 2000 FIGURE 6 Eco-efficiency of digital computation. SOURCE: Adapted from Lando, 1996.
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From page 30... ...
SOURCE: Adapted from Pacific Economic Cooperation Council, 1996, p.
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THE INFORMATION REVOLUTION AND SUSTAINABILITY 1 000.0— 100.0— to 10.0— O31 Electronic mail Ordinary telephone line facsimile Personal computer software Photocopies of written materials Libraries Audio media Leased circuit services (facsimile) · Cable TV Visual media · Terrestrial TV broadcasting · Databases Handwritten materials · Books 107 1o8 109 1o1o 1011 1012 1013 1014 1015 1016 Number of words FIGURE 9 Growth of information and communication equipment stocks in Japan, 19831993.
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From page 32... ...
(1996) leads them to conclude that, although there are theoretical reasons to believe that dematerialization of economic activity will proceed, current trends are unclear: With regard to primary materials, summary ratios of the weight of materials used to economic product appear to be decreasing due to materials substitution, efficiencies, and other economic factors.
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From page 33... ...
Even if prices for fuel and nonfuel materials are assumed to remain stable (perhaps as a result of substitution and technological evolution with concomitant increases in efficiency of process and use of materials) , the cost differential favoring substitution of information for other inputs should continue to grow because of the steep continuing decline in costs of the former.
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From page 34... ...
Thus, although this section focuses on the concept of information density, a second step needed to link the Information Revolution rigorously to sustainability is to quantify and understand the correlations and, if feasible, the causal linkages between increasing information density and greater environmental efficiency. The latter step will require substantial research and conceptual development.
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From page 35... ...
A similar process, adjusted for double counting, might be applied to bits generated within facilities and infrastructure. A figure for bits published in nonelectronic media forms should be relatively easy to estimate, although double counting might be a problem here as well.
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From page 36... ...
Many of these, such as costing noneconomic but productive work such as housework or raising children, are familiar to economists, however, and reasonable valuation methods can be used to impute proper figures. More fundamentally, in keeping with the industrial ecology approach, which encompasses both economic activity and associated externalities, Ea should be considered as the sum of measured economic activity, or Em, and externalities, or Ex Ea = Em + Ex The difficulties of quantifying externalities, a category that includes but goes beyond many of the proposed green accounting systems, are substantial, but not impossible if absolute precision is not required.
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37 o o an VO o .s To _.
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From page 38... ...
Some significant sources of error might include the rapidly dropping cost trends in information technology, which, because capability per dollar rapidly increases, makes dollars a poor, and significantly underestimating, proxy for measuring the underlying technology. In addition, much of the information products' value-added comes not from their information content (which is what one wants to measure)
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From page 39... ...
also projects that related employment categories will grow rapidly: The third fastest growing occupation is listed as systems analysts (from TABLE 7 Employment by Selected Information Industry Sectors Number Employed (in thousands) 2005 Sector 1983 1994 (projected)
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From page 40... ...
That is, of course, the greatly increased capability of tools, which allow virtually any competent lay person to create information, such as home pages on the World Wide Web or e-mail in bulk, or even, for that matter, massive amounts of personal video; information production increasingly is not limited to specialists. Moreover, the clock time of such information is much shorter than with traditional forms: e-mail is routinely deleted out by the recipient, leaving no trace, whereas letters written in the eighteenth century are still used today by historians.
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From page 41... ...
Where developing the data is either technologically or practically unachievable, the boundaries might have to be adjusted (e.g., if reliable data exist only for the OECD countries, one might begin with them despite the global nature of the information industry, perhaps extending the analysis to the global economy through heuristic rules of thumb)
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From page 42... ...
1998. Industrial Ecology: Policy Framework and Implementation.
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From page 43... ...
Singapore: Pacific Economic Cooperation Council. Rejeski, D
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