"The proliferation of environmentally oriented programs within the tech industry, and the industry’s coinciding efforts toward data and technology democratization, generate concerns about the status of environmental data within digital economy. While the accumulation of digital personal data has b
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een a cornerstone of domination of the data analytics industry, many believe environmental data to be a source of “untapped potential.” The potential of environmental data, the argument goes, would benefit equally the digital economy, environmental sciences, and academic data and artificial intelligence experts. This article analyzes the proliferation of the rhetoric about open environmental data by focusing on Microsoft’s Planetary Computer cloud computing program and computer vision experts who curate and use biodiversity data stored on Microsoft’s servers. Through an analytical framework of sociotechnical imaginaries, the article draws connections between visions of future for environmental knowledge production and governance promoted by Microsoft and the work of computer vision experts intending to benefit from the potential of environmental data as machine learning training sets while at the same time helping environmental sciences. Although environmental data on the Planetary Computer is democratized, it nonetheless becomes a valued asset to data economy, but often with unintended consequences, such as enabling citizen science biodiversity data to be used by state surveillance apparatus. The article challenges the view that data’s democratization is unproblem atically serving environmental sciences by examining the consequences of imaginaries of democratization emerging from the data industry leaders and processes of nonmonetary valuation of environmental data by experts who curate these datasets." (Abstract)
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"The Footprint Evaluation Initiative aims to ensure that all evaluations consider environmental sustainability, regardless of whether this is an explicit objective of the project, policy or program being evaluated. This report describes four ‘thought experiments’ undertaken as part of this proje
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ct. The thought experiments explored whether it is relevant, feasible and useful to consider environmental sustainability in evaluation, how this might be done, what challenges and issues it raises, and what is needed to address these. This report aims to document and share what we learned during this process, provide concrete examples of how environmental sustainability might be considered in an evaluation, and share details of our thought experiment process that others might find helpful." (Summary)
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"Following the proposal of the Pan-Amazon Church Network (REPAM), the document is structured on the basis of three conversions to which Pope Francis invites us: the pastoral conversion to which he calls us in the Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium (see-listen); the ecological conversion which t
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he Encyclical Laudato Si’ urges, setting the course (judge-act); and the conversion to church synodality detailed in the Apostolic Constitution Episcopalis Communio, that guides the walking together (judge-act). This Working Document is the fruit of a long process that includes the drafting of the Preparatory Document for the Synod in June 2018; and an extensive survey of Amazon communities." (Pages 3-4)
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