The immense possibilities of today’s internet services, data centres, artificial intelligence and rendered computer graphics have been made possible by a large supply of cheap energy sources: fossil fuels. The promises of yet another generation of artificial intelligence and the rise of the metaverse and cryptocurrencies and more are unthinkable without the endless extraction and flow of fossil energy. Many are already talking about ‘data warming’ as one of the strongly growing drivers of global warming. This talk invites participants to reflect upon the possibilities of a fossil-free internet based on ecological ethics and regenerative principles and seek inspiration from the solar punk movement.

Speaker: Michelle Thornes

Michelle Thorne is Director of Strategy at the Green Web Foundation, working towards a fossil-free internet. She’s a co-initiator of the Green Screen Coalition, and she publishes Branch, an online magazine written by and for people who dream about a sustainable internet, which received the Ars Electronica Award for Digital Humanities in 2021. During her 12 years at Mozilla Foundation, she served as their first Sustainable Internet Lead and directed Mozilla Festival. Michelle's work spans Open Climate, Creative Commons, the Billion Seconds Institute, and co-founding sustainable fashion label Zephyr Berlin. She is currently a visiting professor at Northumbria University.

SEEKCommons is a project funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation, Grant #2226425.

Interested? Learn more at seekcommons.org