LAUREN E. BRIDGES

IN THE MEDIA

• "Data Centers in a Time of Climate Crisis", interviewed on Spark with Nora Young on CBC radio

  • Listen to the podcast and streaming versions and read the related online article

• "Toxic Clouds and Dirty Data", authored blog post for the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy

• "The Return of (Amazon) Ring" interviewed on the Anti-Dystopians podcast

• "Amazon is the largest civilian surveillance network in the United States" authored op-ed in The Guardian

• interviewed on BBC Newsday

• interviewed on NPR's 1A

• interviewed on NBC here and here 

• "Ph.D. Candidates Zane Cooper and Lauren Bridges Receive Grant to Study E-Waste Management" article about research in Graduate Student News

MULTI-MEDIA PROJECTS

Why we need to rethink the energy, water, and waste intensive model of cloud computing.

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Data centers are the physical location where cloud-connected devices and platforms store and retrieve data, which keeps the global internet running. Like any factory, data centers take up a lot of space and use a lot of energy and water to cool the computer servers and make sure your Netflix, Hulu, and HBO stay connected whenever you want them. Besides the huge amount of water and energy data centers consume, they also produce noise pollution, and tonnes of e-waste, which then has to be broken down, shredded, smelted, shipped off-shore for processing, or thrown into landfill. 

With the increasing threat of climate catastrophe, data centers are facing a confluence of existential threats from water scarcity, to increased blackouts due to overheating, to bomb threats, among other issues. 

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This short educational video explains some of the concerns around our increasing reliance on data centers and why we might need to rethink what kinds of digital futures we are building today.