IB Digital Society 4.3A Natural Resources and Ecosystems Notes

4.3A Natural Resources and Ecosystems

The Physical Footprint of Digital Systems

1. The word cloud hides physical reality: every message, stream, and model runs on devices, undersea cables, and data centres built from mined materials and run on energy and water.
2. Seen as a system, an app is the tip of a long chain: extraction, manufacturing, operation, disposal.
3. That chain spans the planet. As a result, its costs (a space question) often land far from the person tapping the screen.
4. Keep impacts (already landed) apart from implications (risks and opportunities ahead). And always ask who gains from the technology and who ends up bearing its cost.

The Minerals Inside Every Device

1. A phone resolves into mined elements: cobalt and lithium in the battery, rare earth elements in magnets and screens, plus gold, copper, tin. Most are non-renewable resources, finite on human timescales.
2. Extraction concentrates its burden: about two-thirds of the world's cobalt comes from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, some dug by hand in artisanal mines.
   1. A 2016 Amnesty International report and later reporting documented hazardous conditions and child labour in parts of the supply chain.
   2. Impact: harm to miners' health and to local water and soil. Implication: rising battery demand (phones, EVs) grows pressure, but opens a chance for cleaner, traceable sourcing.
3. Through power, value flows to distant firms and users while risk stays local. Through values and ethics, a low price tag hides a real cost when the device rests on hazardous labour.