It is June 10, 2030, and in Santon Downham, West Suffolk, United Kingdom, nine-year-old Oliver is busy in front of his computer completing his final weeks of third grade online. Since starting school three years ago, he has only finished his academic year online. He doesn’t know a world where the entire school year was carried out in a classroom. It is just not possible where he lives because temperatures regularly reach the mid to high 30 degrees Celsius by early June, and most schools in his area of the United Kingdom do not have air conditioning. The effects of climate change have meant that relenting heatwaves have become commonplace, happening earlier each year, starting the summer season in Europe. Oliver spends more than six hours a day alone at his desk, only kept company by his teacher and classmates on his screen. He tries his hardest to pay attention, while mostly hoping to catch a windy draft from his open window to provide him with a bit of relief from the heat he swelters under.

Meanwhile, more than 7000 kilometers away, in Kolwezi, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), nine-year-old Joseph is daydreaming that he was at school, instead of being underground in the cobalt mine where he drips sweat because of the close to 40-degree Celsius temperature. Joseph lets out a deep cough from the dust he has been inhaling for the last 12 hours as he stretches out his cramped hand before wrapping his bare fingers around the handle of his chisel to continue mining away at the cobalt ore he is collecting in his already heavy sack. He coughs again and then lets out a long sigh he has been holding back for fear of being beaten by his bosses. He takes solace in the fact that he knows his mother will be happy with him for the $1,500 Congolese Francs (CAD $1) he brings home tonight from his long day’s labour.

In 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic ravished the world, no one could have predicted the impacts, particularly on education and the rapid shift to online learning, and the new normal that would result. The world was already in crisis pre-pandemic, though many people either denied or ignored the correlation between the increasing weather-related catastrophes and climate change. World leaders and citizens alike focussed on the positives of online learning, such as a reduction of paper waste, thus saving millions of trees, and a slow down of ozone loss because of the reduction of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions as a result of reduced transportation needs to attend school (Yin et al., 2022). As part of our new normal, online learning, along with our complacency regarding the climate crisis, not only continued, but grew in abundance, either due to the new openness of education, which affords more people opportunities they otherwise would not have had to learn, or out of necessity because severe weather events have ultimately led to repeated school closures in many parts of the world.

While there are many positives that have long-since been touted about the benefits and advancement of digital learning, there is also a steep cost when it comes to the impact of technology on the environment that has not received as much attention in education technology (ed-tech) space. The growth of online learning has only exasperated the long-ignored climate crisis we created, and continue to fuel, as we cause irreparable damage to Earth, with the greatest impacts disproportionately affecting the world’s most vulnerable populations. As Selwyn (2021) argues, ed-tech has prominently positioned itself as optimistic and forward-thinking, but we cannot continue with our practices in digital education in a sustainable manner.

While it may be true that online learning has led to a decrease in CO2 emissions as a result of lack of transportation to brick-and-mortar education institutions, any reductions once seen have now been negated in order to power our digital lifestyles. Morley et al. (2018) explain, most energy research has been around direct consumer consumption with little focus on the infrastructures required to power technology, yet using mobile phone infrastructures as an example, which require ten times more energy than it takes to power mobile devices.

Although remote learning may lead to less paper being used, there are not necessarily more trees being saved as a result. All of the information presented by online instructors and saved by students still needs to be stored, and as much as we like to think of this storage in “cyberspace”, the truth is that millions of trees need to be cut down every year in order to build new data server centres that enable the growth of our cloud-based computing. These data centres also require incredible amounts of energy to both build and maintain their climate-controlled environments (Thylstrup, 2019, as cited in Selwyn, 2021).

Worldwide, companies are manufacturing, and citizens are consuming, technological devices at a rapid pace that we simply don’t have the space for. As pointed out by Betts (2008), the average life span of a computer is about three years before it is replaced by a newer model. Apple released 21 models of the iPhone in a five-year period (Carey, 2022). As a result of our nature toward disposable technology, electronic waste (e-waste) is an ever-growing problem. According to Forti et al. (2020), a record 53.6 million metric tonnes (Mt) of electronic waste was generated worldwide in 2019. E-waste is expected to reach 74 Mt by 2030, almost doubling since 2014. Due to high costs and strict environmental regulations associated with recycling e-waste, many developed countries export their e-waste to developing countries where it sits in landfills. On the off chance it is recycled, it is done so with little consideration for worker safety or environmental protection from the many toxic chemicals such as lead, cadmium, and mercury it contains (Cobbing, 2008).

Not only are the toxic chemicals from digital devices leaching into the environment and impacting vulnerable people that work and live in those regions, but the process to mine the earth’s non-renewable resources that technology requires also has dire consequences for the environment and those that live off the land around these operations. The extraction of minerals, such as cobalt and lithium, needed for the manufacturing of digital devices has historically taken place in regions of low economic development. In the DRC, Amnesty International found very young children mining for cobalt using rudimentary tools and no protective equipment, which has resulted in skin irritations and respiratory problems, potentially leading to a fatal lung disease, called “hard metal lung disease” for the workers (Amnesty International, 2016). Additionally, in the South American countries of Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina, the Atacama indigenous people are facing water supply depletions, on top of their existing shortages from regional droughts, due to the refining of lithium on their lands, which requires enormous amounts of water (Frankel & Whoriskey, 2016).

This paper paints a bleak picture of the current reality and the potential for 2030 around online learning if we, as a society, especially those in the ed-tech space, are to continue with the status quo. We are in a position to educate and provide solutions. We must lobby for cleaner, non-disposable, and recyclable technology in order to protect the earth and our world’s most vulnerable populations.

References

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Betts, K. (2008). Reducing the global impact of e-waste. Environmental Science & Technology, 42(5), 1393. https://doi.org/10.1021/es087087p

Carey, C. (2022, October 30). The history of every iPhone model from 2007-2022. iPhone Life Magazine. https://www.iphonelife.com/content/evolution-iphone-every-model-2007-2016

Cobbing, M. (2008, February). Toxic tech: Not in our backyard, uncovering the hidden flows of e-waste. Greenpeace International. extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/wp-content/uploads/legacy/Global/usa/report/2008/2/toxic-tech-not-in-our-backyard.pdf

Forti V., Balde C.P., Kuehr R., & Bel G. (2020). The global e-waste monitor 2020: Quantities,

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Frankel, T., & Whoriskey, P. (2016, December 2016). Tossed aside in the “white gold” rush. Indigenous people are left poor as tech world takes lithium from under their feet. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/business/batteries/tossed-aside-in-the-lithium-rush/

Morley, J., Widdicks, K., & Hazas, M. Digitalisation, energy and data demand: The impact of Internet traffic on overall and peak electricity consumption. Energy Research & Social Science, 38, 128-137. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2018.01.018

Selwyn, N. (2021). Ed-Tech Within Limits: Anticipating educational technology in times of environmental crisis. E-Learning and Digital Media, 18(5), 496–510. https://doi.org/10.1177/20427530211022951

Yin, Z., Jiang, X., Lin, S., & Liu, J. (2022, May 15). The impact of online education on carbon emissions in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic – Taking Chinese universities as examples. Applied Energy, 314, 118875, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2022.118875