Using AI art to inspire Urban Imagination; events & links
Emptying my inbox
A short newsletter today, I’m saving most of my energy for a gonzo product teardown for the next issue (or two - I keep hitting Substack’s word limit).
Messing around with AI: flooding my local town
The problems with AI for design are covered exceedingly well elsewhere. I’ve been using it for a niche reason, to help folks visualize the impacts of climate change in my town.
Tools:
Here’s the local middle school which sits near the water. The water, kayaks, and wind turbines are all added by Photoshop.
For the optimists, I’ve also been using generative AI to show what local climate solutions might look like - from increased city shade to floating solar arrays. It’s scarily easy to do. Sure, the quality isn’t great, but it’s good enough for my local climate change newsletter.
A few more, less fantastical, examples below (all water artificially added).
Useful sustainability links by Smashing Mag
Vitaly Friedman put us on a list, thanks Vitaly! Lots of good resources in that post
Deceptive Design Book
Deceptive (formally Dark) Design has a book, from the OG himself Harry Brignull More: www.deceptive.design
Where to find SustainableUX on social media
Nowhere. I tried using Mastodon for a while but it didn’t take; still waiting on a bluesky invite. I guess there’s always…LinkedIn? Here’s our LinkedIn Group.
EVENTS
June 22nd: Practical Ethical Design Workshop @ UX London
UX London is one of my favorite remaining UX conferences, and the programming is usually excellent.
Tue Jun 20: Carbon Aware Computing - Design Principles & Patterns (in German)
Sept 14th, NYC: Responsible Tech Summit with AllTechIsHuman
How can we ensure that emerging technology is aligned with the public interest?
November: Green Digital Accessibility
Where Accessibility meets Sustainability. Barcelona.
Climate impact of a domain name (via EcoDomain)
It’s not nothing, but it’s not a lot, either:
As a worked example, assuming that a domain received 10 million DNS requests per year, we could estimate its carbon footprint to be:
10M * 2 * 500 bytes = 10 GB
10 GB * 0.81 kWh/GB = 8.1 kWh
8.1 kWh * 442g/kWh = 3.6 kg CO2e/year
Climate misinfo on social media
In case it needs repeating: to heck Joe Rogan.
A clip of celebrity podcaster Joe Rogan touting a conspiracy theory that links global warming to Earth’s magnetic field has gone viral on TikTok, despite the platform’s new policy prohibiting climate misinformation, a new report warns. It’s the latest report to highlight how Big Tech companies continue to fuel false and misleading claims about climate change online, an issue that some experts say has become a top threat to the global effort to curb rising temperatures.
From Wholegrain’s Curiously Green newsletter
Shamelessly lifting from someone else’s newsletter (you should subscribe!)
Workplace activism policies (with template)
This new policy supports all team members with their personal activism, including non-violent direct action (NVDA). We’ve already seen the policy used as some of our team (including Tom of course!) attended the recent Extinction Rebellion protect, The Big One, at the end of last month. We took legal advice to create this policy, to ensure we could include comprehensive support to those taking advantage of it. If you’re interested in creating similar for your organisation, we’ve partnered with Business Declares to create an open source template, which can be adapted to your needs.
Microsoft’s Device footprinting calculator
The Surface Emissions Estimator provides you with a report that includes estimates of carbon emissions. These estimates are based on a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) in accordance with ISO 14040 and ISO 14044.
Apple rolls out green device charging
On by default, which is nice. These devices don’t need much energy to charge, but in aggregate its big.
Figma template for sustainable design
New data centre turns waste heat into warm water for swimming pools
State of green software
This deserves it’s own post. Next time, hopefully.
Another green Job finder T:akelo
Empower tech talent to follow non-traditional paths, and work on causes that they care about (full-time or part-time)
That’s all, folks! Keep your eyes open for the next issue, where I try to do a straightforward product teardown but dig too greedily and too deep, then end cowering in the corner wearing a tin-foil hat.
If that sounds fun, subscribe maybe?