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2:30 - 4:00 pm
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4:30 - 6:00 pm
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Shadow
Side of InfoTech
All
major, civilization-altering new technologies have serious downsides and
unintended consequences (automobiles, nuclear energy, genetic manipulation,
etc.). Info-tech is no exception. Bioneers Co-producer and Lapis Contributing
Editor JP
Harpignies
hosts the leading, deeply thoughtful Net critic Steven
Talbott
,and the indigenous rights activist, Executive Director of the Cultural
Conservancy and former editor of the Ecopsychology Newsletter Melissa
Nelson
in exploring some of the darker aspects of the Net. Will the vertiginously
accelerated flows of transnational capital made possible by the Net further
ravage the global environment? Will the disembodiment of virtuality further
sever our connection to the natural world?
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Effective
Web Campaigns
This panel highlights some
of the most effective, succesful, exemplary uses of the Web by activists
and looks ahead to possible future directions and strategies. With Jim
Slama,
the brilliant architect of the on-line component of the Keep "organic"
Organic campaign that mobilized over 250 000 people and forced the USDA
to back down from its proposed sham "organics" standards; Brian
West
of the Earth Island Institute, one of the most vital and influential
environmental groups on the planet; and Catherine
Baldi,
Communications Director for Project Underground, who is setting up "the
motherlode," an extraordinary database which is an invaluable tool in
arming activists resisting destructive mining and drilling operations
throughout the world with critical information.
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Industrial
Ecology & Information Technology
Bill
Shireman from
Global Futures and the Future 500, and
Gil Friend
from Natural Logic
are pioneers in "greening" global business and industrial ecology. Andrew
Michael
is involved
with the Bay Area Council promoting sustainable business pracitces by
understanding the intersection between information technology and environmental
performance. They'll
discuss the role the info-tech revolution can play in raising the eco-awareness
of government and corporate institutions.
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InfoTech
& Sustainable Development
The
acceleration of technology has allowed us to experience the benefits
of a digital economy, but population growth, deforestation, pollution,
famines in Africa, global warming, dire poverty and global inequality
continue unabated. Can the Internet help Indigenous and other communities
in the "developing world" address their problems or will it only exacerbate
the divide between rich and poor, North and South? Join
Michael North,
of Greenstar.com, Pablo
Zavala
and Natan
Zaidenweber
as they discuss how the Internet could help historically dis-enfranchised
communities in the "third world" carve a path of sustainable, "green"
development and empowerment.
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Art,
Technology, and the Environment
Artists Eduardo
Kac and
Shawn
Brixey
will discuss their work and the problems of balancing the creation of
digital art with their concern for creating a greater ecological awareness.
Art historian Edward
Shanken will
moderate the panel and discussion with the audience on the following issues
and questions: What is the role of the artist in digital culture? How
can artists utilize technology in ways that are critical of technocratic
structures of authority and offer alternative modes of knowing and being?
In what ways does the artistic use of technology - even in the most critical
ways - unwittingly supporting the very technocratic structures of authority
those efforts seek to challenge? How does the artistic use of technology
follow the paradoxical formula of relying on technological means to solve
problems caused by previous technological means? |
Roundtable
on the Global Brain
Ever since Teilhard de Chardin first proposed the idea of the noosphere
earlier this century, conceptualizations of emergent global consciousness
have tended to describe the phenomenon in terms of a radical separation
from nature. With the rise of computers, and especially the Internet,
both the popularity of various concepts of the noosphere, and the tendency
to see it as existing exclusively in human technology, in opposition
to nature, have accelerated. This session will explore the relationship
between emergent global consciousness and nature, and specifically address
the question of the global mind waking up just in time to find its body
- the biosphere - in deep trouble.
Duane
Elgin, Jim Fournier, Pierre
Levy, Mark Pesce &
Peter Russell
with
Erik Davis
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Predicting The Future
Digital tools exist to help you predict the future. Normal
people can use these tools to share dreams and together create deeply
evocative and visually realistic simulations of many possible sustainable
futures. You can immerse thousands or millions of people in designing,
testing and vicariously experiencing prototype sustainable futures before
we build them on Earth.James
Kalin
Alexander
Repenning
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InfoTech
Professionals and Social Responsibility
The Information Technology Panel: Many activists in the environmental
movement feel that information technology and ecological change are
incompatible. In the Planetwork IT Panel, we will hear from IT professionals
who are exploring ways to use their skills in support of the environment.
Come join the discussion. Moderator: Cate
Gable,
President of Axioun Communications Intl., author of Strategic Action
Planning NOW! and e-commerce business consultant Maria
Jankowska,
Associate Professor at the University of Idaho, Network Resources Librarian,
member of the Idaho Geospatial Data Center project team, founder of
the Electronic Green Journal, and Chairman of the Environmental Task
Force for the American Library Association Twyla
Wilson,
Director of Strategic Alliance Program for Professional Service Division,
USWeb/CKS, founder and project team member of a new environmental portal
currently under development and
Denise
Joines
with
One North West.
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