the future was trying to tell us something

Sometimes a conversation takes you somewhere unexpected.

This one began with films.

We started talking about The Terminator, with Sarah Connor preparing for a future she could barely imagine. Then came Jurassic Park, where a young girl discovers that knowing how technology works can make all the difference.

We remembered The Last Mimzy, with its mysterious objects arriving from the future, and eventually found ourselves talking about A Wrinkle in Time — a story about children searching for a missing father while confronting a darkness that threatens individuality, love and freedom.

And somewhere along the way, I started thinking about how much the world has changed.

Think back to 2014.

Think about the technology we were exploring, the possibilities we were imagining, the excitement of discovering new tools and learning how to create things online.

Now look at us.

Artificial intelligence can generate images, imitate voices, write stories and produce convincing information. Social media platforms collect enormous amounts of personal information. Artists are discovering that their work may be scraped and used to train systems without meaningful permission. Algorithms influence what people see, what they believe and what they buy.

Meanwhile, enormous wealth and technological power are concentrating in fewer hands.

We have extraordinary inventions, but we haven't necessarily figured out how to use them responsibly.

And children are growing up in the middle of it.

What are we teaching them?

Are we teaching them how to question what appears on a screen? How to distinguish information from manipulation? How to protect their privacy? How to understand who owns the technology they use?

Are we teaching them that a machine can be useful without being wise, that popularity doesn't equal truth, and that something created by artificial intelligence isn't automatically original or trustworthy?

Most importantly, are we teaching them to think for themselves?

Our little story, The Children Who Found Tomorrow, isn't a prediction. It isn't a warning that technology itself is evil. Technology can help us learn, communicate, create and solve problems.

But tools need people who understand their consequences.

We wanted to explore something else, too: the importance of imagination, nature, creativity, community and human connection.

We wanted children to see that they aren't powerless.

They don't have to accept every decision made by wealthy corporations, governments or people who happen to control the latest technology. They can ask questions, learn, participate, create, organise and make different choices.

And adults have responsibilities here, too.

We cannot simply hand children a complicated world and tell them to figure it out. We need to set examples. We need to admit when we don't know something. We need to listen to young people, encourage curiosity and give them room to make mistakes.

We also need to remember that progress should be measured by more than profits, convenience or how quickly a machine can do something.

What happens to the oceans? The forests? The animals? The artists? The people who cannot afford the newest technology? The communities that are left behind?

And what happens to our ability to think, imagine, create and care for one another?

Perhaps that is what all those films were asking us to consider in their own way.

The future isn't something that simply happens to us. It is shaped by what we do, what we allow, what we question and what we choose to protect.

One day, today's children will look back at this period in history.

I hope they won't have to say, "Remember when everybody saw what was happening and nobody did anything?"

I hope they will remember the people who asked questions, protected the things that mattered, shared what they knew and kept creating.

We don't need to teach children to fear the future.

We need to teach them that they have a part in creating it.

And perhaps we need that reminder ourselves.

 

the children who found tomorrow

The first message arrived on an ordinary Tuesday.

It appeared on an old computer in the back room of the library. Nobody knew who had turned it on. The library had been closed for renovations, the computers were unplugged, and the building was supposed to be empty.

But there it was.

A single sentence on the screen:

PLEASE DON'T LET THEM FORGET.

Four children found it.

There was Maya, who loved drawing things that didn't exist yet. Eli, who could take apart almost anything and usually put it back together. Sam, who asked questions adults found inconvenient. And little Rowan, who collected stones, feathers, seeds and other things people walked past without noticing.

They tried to find out who had sent the message.

The computer had no internet connection. No electricity was running to the room. Yet a second message appeared.

WE ARE SENDING THIS FROM A TIME YOU HAVEN'T REACHED.

Eli laughed.

"That's impossible."

Sam looked at the screen.

"Is it?"

The messages continued.

They showed pictures of a city with enormous buildings, glowing screens and roads filled with silent vehicles. There were machines that could write books, paint pictures, answer questions and imitate human voices.

At first, it looked wonderful.

Then the pictures changed.

Forests had disappeared. The ocean was filled with plastic. People lived behind screens, arguing with strangers they had never met. A handful of extraordinarily wealthy people owned the machines, the networks and much of the information everyone depended on.

The children stared.

"Why didn't anybody stop it?" Maya asked.

The computer answered:

SOME PEOPLE TRIED. SOME PEOPLE DIDN'T KNOW. SOME PEOPLE THOUGHT IT WAS TOO LATE.

Rowan placed a little feather beside the keyboard.

"Where are the birds?"

For a long time, there was no answer.

Then another message appeared.

THAT IS WHY WE ARE CONTACTING YOU.

The four children began investigating. They discovered that the messages weren't predictions. They were possibilities.

The future wasn't fixed.

Every choice changed something.

A forest protected today could still be standing fifty years from now. A child taught to question information could become an adult who refused to be manipulated. An artist who continued making things by hand could remind people that creativity was more than a product to be harvested.

A scientist could ask who benefited from a new invention. A community could decide that clean water mattered more than another luxury development.

And sometimes, the smallest decisions mattered most.

The children returned to the library every Tuesday.

They started a project. They planted seeds, recorded stories from older people, photographed disappearing neighbourhoods, learned how computers worked and taught their friends how to recognise misinformation.

They also made art.

Lots of it.

One afternoon, a final message appeared.

WE CANNOT COME BACK AND CHANGE YOUR WORLD. ONLY YOU CAN DO THAT.

Maya looked at the screen.

"Then why send us a warning?"

The answer came slowly.

BECAUSE WE REMEMBER WHAT IT WAS LIKE WHEN WE STOPPED ASKING QUESTIONS.

The screen went dark.

Years passed.

The children grew up. They didn't save the world in one dramatic moment. There was no single villain, no magic button and no machine they could simply switch off.

Instead, they kept asking questions.

They learned to use technology without surrendering their judgement. They made things instead of only consuming them. They listened to people whose experiences were different from their own. They understood that progress without responsibility wasn't necessarily progress at all.

And Rowan, who had once collected feathers, eventually became a biologist.

One morning, while walking along a restored shoreline, Rowan found a small feather caught between two rocks.

A bird called from the trees.

Rowan smiled.

Tomorrow had arrived.

And there was still something worth protecting.

Take Back The Planet Part 4: the world is shifting

 Take Back The Planet Part 4: 

the world is shifting, and the cracks are showing

There is something happening around the world that deserves our attention.

From France and Italy to Serbia and Israel, people are taking to the streets. Students, workers, farmers, housing advocates and ordinary citizens are questioning the direction their countries are taking.

The reasons are not identical, and neither are the political circumstances. But there are common threads: the cost of living, unaffordable housing, insecure work, corruption, public services under pressure, and a growing feeling that political leaders are not listening.

In October 2026, youth-led demonstrations spread across several European countries. In Serbia, a student-backed political movement made a significant electoral breakthrough after almost two years of protests. In Italy, large demonstrations brought together people concerned about wages, fuel costs, inflation and housing. France has also experienced major protests over living costs and declining public services.

In Israel, political divisions remain deep. Demonstrations have focused on government accountability, democratic institutions, military service, minority rights and the country's security policies. The latest election has not resolved those divisions.

These are not all the same movement. But they raise a similar question:

Who is government actually working for, and whose future is being considered?

democracy, elections and political interference

Elections are supposed to give people a voice. But that voice can be influenced, manipulated or drowned out.

Political interference is not just someone hacking a voting machine. It can involve disinformation, fake social media accounts, coordinated influence campaigns, foreign money, targeted propaganda and attempts to undermine public confidence.

France has investigated an alleged digital interference operation involving an Israeli private company called Blackcore. French authorities linked the company to online activity targeting political candidates. However, the identity of whoever commissioned the operation has not been established.

There is another distinction worth making. Foreign networks can exploit protests and amplify divisions without having caused the protests in the first place. European officials have said there is evidence of attempts to manipulate the narrative around recent unrest, but no conclusive evidence that foreign powers started the riots.

That distinction matters. We need to investigate interference without dismissing legitimate public grievances.

And we need to ask what happens when political influence, enormous wealth, media ownership and powerful technology companies begin to overlap.

the price of everything

Meanwhile, ordinary people are trying to pay their bills.

Gas prices affect more than the person standing at the pump. They affect deliveries, groceries, transportation, construction, farming and the cost of moving almost everything we use.

When fuel becomes expensive, the effects travel through the economy. Businesses pass on costs. Food becomes more expensive to transport. Workers spend more getting to work. People who were already struggling have even less room to manage.

Metro Vancouver has seen gasoline prices approach or exceed two dollars a litre during 2026. And fuel is only one part of the affordability problem.

In Metro Vancouver, Living Wage BC reported that more than half a million employees — 35 per cent of the regional workforce — earn less than the calculated living wage of $27.85 an hour.

Think about that.

People can be working, contributing, paying taxes and doing everything society tells them they should do, and still be unable to afford a secure life here.

Vancouver: the city I remember

This is where the global story becomes personal.

I grew up in Vancouver. I remember a city with neighbourhoods, small businesses, familiar faces, artists, working people and communities where people could imagine building a life.

I have watched it change.

There are people living in extraordinary wealth, and people sleeping outside. There are expensive homes and empty investment properties, while workers struggle to find somewhere they can afford to live. There are businesses looking for employees and people looking for work who cannot afford to stay in the city.

The contrast is difficult to ignore.

It is heartbreaking to watch a place you grew up in become increasingly inaccessible to the very people who helped make it a city.

This is not about blaming newcomers or ordinary people who have moved here. People come from all over the world looking for safety, opportunity and a better life. The questions belong with the systems that shape housing, wages, investment, taxation, land use and public policy.

A city is more than its property values.

It is the people who live there.

the billionaires, the technology and the future

At the same time, wealth and political influence are becoming increasingly concentrated.

Technology is being marketed as the answer to almost everything. Artificial intelligence promises efficiency, innovation and convenience. But it is also being developed for surveillance, policing, military applications, data collection and the monitoring of populations.

Who owns these systems? Who controls the information? Who decides how they are used?

And who is accountable when they cause harm?

The same technology requires physical infrastructure: land, electricity, water, minerals, construction materials and enormous investments. Data centres, pipelines, mines and energy projects all have environmental consequences that need to be examined.

We cannot talk about a digital future as though it exists somewhere outside the natural world.

and then there is the climate

As if all of this were not enough, El Niño is strengthening.

NOAA's October 2026 outlook says a strong to very strong El Niño is likely to continue through the Northern Hemisphere winter, with a historic-strength event possible. That does not tell us exactly what weather Vancouver will experience, and it does not mean every forecast disaster will happen. But it is a serious reason to pay attention.

El Niño can influence weather patterns around the world. Its effects vary by region and season. Here in British Columbia, we need to watch the forecasts rather than assume a particular outcome.

We have already seen what floods, fires, drought, heat and extreme weather can do to communities, homes, infrastructure and food systems.

And the people with the least money and fewest resources are often the ones with the least ability to recover.

who gets protected?

This is the contradiction I keep coming back to.

We live in a world capable of extraordinary technological achievements. We can communicate across continents in seconds. We can build machines that process unimaginable amounts of information. We can move money around the planet almost instantly.

Yet we still struggle to provide people with affordable housing, clean water, reliable food, healthcare and a safe place to sleep.

We can debate the future of artificial intelligence, build data centres and plan enormous energy projects, but what about the future of the people who are already here?

What about the young people protesting because they cannot see a future they can afford?

What about the workers whose wages do not keep up with the cost of living?

What about the people who have been pushed out of the cities they call home?

And what about the planet that makes every other plan possible?

Perhaps these are not separate crises at all. Perhaps they are connected consequences of decisions about power, wealth, resources and priorities.

I don't think we have seen the full consequences yet.

The question is whether we are paying attention while there is still time to make different choices.

A future should not belong only to those who can afford to buy their way out of the problems facing everyone else.

It should belong to all of us — and to the generations who come after us.

---

Sources and further reading

• Reuters, October 28, 2026 — youth-led protests across Europe.
• Associated Press, October 2026 — Serbia's student-backed electoral breakthrough.
• Le Monde, October 31, 2026 — demonstrations across Italy.
• Euronews, October 21, 2026 — foreign manipulation of narratives around European unrest.
• Living Wage BC — 2026 Metro Vancouver wage-gap report.
• NOAA Climate Prediction Center — October 8, 2026 El Niño diagnostic discussion.

the great global shuffle Part 2

 

the great global shuffle Part 2: who owns the future, and who gets to live in it?

We connected the world. We handed over our data. We built the machines. And now we need to ask who is actually benefiting.

Once upon a time, we were promised that technology would make our lives easier.

Computers would save us time. The internet would connect us. Smartphones would put information at our fingertips. Artificial intelligence would take care of the tedious stuff and help solve humanity's biggest problems.

And some of that has happened.

But somewhere along the way, something else happened.

Technology became an extraordinarily powerful business. A handful of enormously wealthy individuals and corporations began accumulating influence over the infrastructure that increasingly shapes our lives.

Our communications, searches, photographs, purchases, movements, workplaces and personal information became valuable commercial data.

And AI changed the conversation again.

Who is AI really being built for?

We are often presented with AI as a consumer product: a clever assistant, a chatbot, a writing tool or a way to create pictures.

But there is another market.

Governments, police agencies, military organizations and private security companies are exploring or purchasing AI systems for surveillance, facial recognition, predictive analysis, intelligence gathering, border control and other applications.

Some systems are designed to monitor populations, identify individuals, analyse behaviour or assist decisions about who receives attention from authorities.

These technologies can have legitimate applications, but they also raise serious questions about privacy, discrimination, accountability and civil liberties.

Who watches the watchers?

Who checks the algorithms?

What happens when a machine makes a mistake about a person?

And what happens when governments or corporations have access to more information about ordinary people than those people have about the institutions controlling it?

AI isn't just a new gadget. It is becoming part of the infrastructure of power.

The billionaires building tomorrow

We are living through an extraordinary concentration of wealth and technological influence.

Some of the world's richest individuals are investing in artificial intelligence, robotics, space exploration, private infrastructure and enormous computing facilities.

There is nothing inherently wrong with scientific exploration or technological ambition.

But there is something worth questioning when we can find extraordinary amounts of money for private space programmes while communities struggle with housing, healthcare, clean water and climate disasters.

We can dream about travelling to Mars, but we still have to live on Earth.

We can build increasingly sophisticated machines, but we cannot manufacture another functioning planet.

And no billionaire can purchase an entirely separate atmosphere, functioning ecosystem or stable climate.

The environmental bill for artificial intelligence

There is another part of this story that deserves far more attention.

AI requires enormous computing infrastructure.

Data centres need land, electricity, cooling systems, water and equipment.

Their construction requires concrete, steel, copper, electrical components and other materials.

As demand for computing grows, so does the pressure to build more facilities and expand electricity infrastructure.

Communities are increasingly asking difficult questions:

• How much electricity will these facilities consume?
• Where will the power come from?
• How much water will be required for cooling?
• What happens to local ecosystems?
• Who pays for new electricity infrastructure?
• Will local residents benefit from the development?
• What happens to the land and communities surrounding these projects?

And this is happening while communities are already dealing with wildfires, floods, droughts, extreme heat and other climate-related risks.

The International Energy Agency has warned that electricity demand from data centres is growing rapidly.

This is not an argument against technology. It is an argument for asking what technology costs before we build it.

Pipelines, data centres and the same old question

Whether we are discussing pipelines, LNG facilities, mining projects or enormous data centres, there is a common question.

Who gets the benefits, and who carries the consequences?

A project might generate enormous private investment, but what happens to the surrounding environment?

What happens to the water?

What happens to wildlife?

What happens to Indigenous territories and communities?

What happens to the people who live there long after the investors have moved on?

We cannot keep treating pristine land, rivers, forests and coastlines as empty spaces waiting to be developed.

They are living ecosystems.

And they are part of the systems that keep us alive.

The strange new enlightenment

There is a term being used in some technology and political circles: the Dark Enlightenment.

It describes an anti-democratic political philosophy associated with questioning or rejecting liberal democracy and advocating alternative forms of concentrated authority.

It is worth understanding because it raises questions about the relationship between wealth, technology, democracy and power.

Who should govern?

Who should have influence?

What rights should ordinary citizens retain?

And should technological capability ever become a substitute for democratic accountability?

These are not abstract philosophical questions anymore. They matter when technology can monitor, classify, influence and potentially restrict people's lives.

When do we wake up?

Back in 2013, I was worried about the sheer number of electronic devices being manufactured and connected around the world.

I was thinking about mining, manufacturing, consumption and waste.

Today, we have an even bigger picture to consider.

We have billions of connected devices, increasingly powerful AI, expanding data centres, enormous concentrations of private wealth and growing demands for energy and natural resources.

At the same time, people are struggling to afford homes, find secure employment and deal with environmental changes they did very little to create.

And the young people taking Canada to court over climate change are asking a question that should concern all of us:

What kind of future are we leaving them?

Perhaps the most important thing we can do is stop treating every new technology as inevitable progress.

Ask questions.

Demand transparency.

Protect privacy.

Protect the environment.

Insist that communities have a voice in decisions affecting their land and resources.

And remember that technology is supposed to serve humanity, not the other way around.

We don't need to stop imagining the future. We need to start asking who is designing it, who owns it, who controls it and whether there will still be a healthy planet on which to enjoy it.

The billionaires may have their eyes on the stars.

The rest of us still need clean water, breathable air, somewhere to live and a planet that can sustain life.

Perhaps it's time we paid a little more attention to the place we're standing.

Because there is no upgrade, no algorithm and no amount of money that can replace a living Earth.

Changerzz — questioning the things we take for granted.

the great global shuffle Part 1

 

the great global shuffle Part 1: we moved the factories, imported the fortunes, and misplaced the future

Once upon a time, the world decided it was going to become more efficient.

Factories moved overseas. Manufacturing followed cheaper labour, cheaper production and growing markets. Products could be made thousands of kilometres away and shipped to consumers who wanted them faster, cheaper and newer.

Asia became a manufacturing powerhouse.

China, Taiwan, South Korea, Vietnam and other countries became central to the world's electronics supply chains.

Our phones, computers, televisions and countless household gadgets began making their way around the planet.

It was called globalisation.

And for a while, it looked like a wonderful arrangement.

We got inexpensive products. Companies expanded. International trade flourished. New fortunes were made.

But there was a little detail that didn't receive quite as much attention.

Someone still had to mine the minerals, operate the factories, use the water, generate the electricity and deal with the industrial waste.

The environmental costs didn't disappear when manufacturing moved. They moved too.

Then came the next chapter.

The global economy created enormous fortunes. International investment expanded. Money crossed borders. Property became an investment vehicle, not simply a place to live.

Cities like Vancouver became destinations for international wealth.

Richmond changed. Vancouver changed. Condominiums rose, property prices climbed and the meaning of an affordable home became increasingly difficult for ordinary working people to understand.

And here we are.

A country with extraordinary natural resources, educated people, universities, technology and enormous wealth.

Yet people struggle to find secure work, afford rent and get ahead.

It's a strange contradiction.

We can manufacture billions of electronic devices, ship them across oceans, build enormous data centres and create unimaginable fortunes.

But we seem to have trouble making sure people can afford a roof over their heads.

And there's another contradiction.

The countries and communities that helped produce the goods consumed by the wealthy world have often carried disproportionate environmental burdens. Meanwhile, the profits from global supply chains have not necessarily gone to the workers or communities bearing those costs.

This isn't about blaming immigrants, Asian communities or people who came here looking for a better life.

People move for all sorts of reasons. They work, raise families, start businesses and struggle with housing just like everyone else.

The question is about the system.

Who benefits from global trade?

Who controls the investment?

Who owns the factories, the land and the housing?

Who gets the profits?

Who gets the pollution?

And why are ordinary people, whether in a manufacturing town in Asia or a rental apartment in Vancouver, so often left carrying the consequences?

Perhaps we've confused economic growth with progress.

Perhaps we've become so busy counting products, property values and profits that we've forgotten to count the human and environmental costs.

I remember asking questions about the number of connected devices back in 2013.

I was concerned about the resources needed to manufacture them and what would happen when the world kept demanding more.

Today, the numbers are bigger, the technology is more complicated and the consequences reach even further.

Maybe it's time to stop asking how much more the world can produce.

Maybe we should start asking how much better we can make life for the people who actually live here.

Because a global economy should be about improving lives, not simply moving wealth around the world while ordinary people struggle to find somewhere to live.

We connected the planet. Perhaps it's time we learned how to look after it — and each other.

Changerzz — questioning the things we take for granted.

Take back the Planet :Part 3

 Take back the Planet: Part 3

Part 3 — 38 billion connected devices: what does that mean for our planet?

This is where I want to return to the question that concerned me most when I did my final project in 2013.

It wasn't simply that we were manufacturing more phones, computers and tablets.

It was the scale of it all.

We were creating a world in which the number of connected devices was already greater than the human population.

I wondered where all these devices were coming from, what resources were required to manufacture them, and how long the planet could sustain this kind of consumption.

Thirteen years later, I think we need to ask those questions again.

Look at the numbers

Connected devices	2013	October 2026
Mobile phones	Included in broad estimate	8.75 billion
Computers and laptops	Included	1.77 billion
Fixed phones	Included	0.75 billion
Short-range IoT devices	Included in broad estimate	21 billion
Wide-area IoT devices	Included in broad estimate	5.44 billion
Total	About 10 billion	About 37.71 billion

Source: Statista, October 2026.

The categories and counting methods differ, so this is an indication of the scale of our connected world, not an exact like-for-like growth calculation.

But stop for a moment and consider what these numbers represent.

Nearly 38 billion connected devices.

Not 38 billion people.

Not 38 billion necessities.

Devices.

Some are essential to healthcare, communications, transportation, research and public safety. Others are conveniences, entertainment products, household gadgets and commercial equipment.

Every one of them requires resources to manufacture and infrastructure to operate.

And many will eventually need replacing.

Where does it all come from?

Before we can connect to the internet, stream a movie, send a photograph or ask artificial intelligence a question, an extraordinary industrial process has already taken place.

Minerals have been extracted from the Earth.

Copper, lithium, cobalt, nickel, gold and other materials have been mined and processed.

Factories have manufactured components. Other factories have assembled them into finished products. Ships, planes and trucks have transported them around the world.

Then we plug them in, connect them, upgrade them and eventually discard them.

The digital world might feel invisible, but its environmental footprint is very real.

This is what worried me in 2013

How much more can we extract from the Earth?

How much water and energy can we consume?

How much land can we disturb?

How much electronic waste can we generate?

And who is paying the environmental price for the convenience enjoyed by the rest of the world?

These are not questions that can be answered simply by telling consumers to recycle their old phones.

We need to examine the entire system: extraction, manufacturing, consumption, product lifespan, repair, reuse and disposal.

Technology can improve our lives. But innovation should also mean making products that last longer, use fewer resources and create less waste.

We need to stop measuring progress simply by how much we can manufacture, connect and consume.

Perhaps it's time to measure progress by how much we can accomplish while taking less from the planet.

And that brings us back to the young people taking Canada to court.

They are asking what kind of future they will inherit.

They deserve answers.

So do the communities living beside mines, factories, waste sites and polluted waterways.

The planet is not an unlimited warehouse, and the next generation should not be expected to inherit the bill for our consumption.

We have to start thinking about the true cost of everything we plug in.

Take Back the planet: Part 2

 Take Back the plant: Part 2

from one telephone in the hallway to a connected planet: the environmental cost of our digital lives

The technology revolution changed how we live. But have we considered what it takes to keep us connected?

Remember when most households had one telephone?

It sat on a table or hung on a wall. It had a cord, perhaps a long one if you wanted a little privacy. Everyone in the family shared it. If someone was talking, you waited.

There were no smartphones, no social media, no streaming services, no video calls, no tablets and no cloud storage.

We communicated, but we didn't carry the entire world around in our pockets.

Then everything changed.

The numbers tell the story

Let's look at how the world moved from traditional telephone lines to the digital age.

Landlines

• 1990: Approximately 9.8 fixed telephone subscriptions per 100 people.
• 2006: Landlines reached their global high, with approximately 1.22 billion lines.
• 2024: Traditional public telephone network lines had fallen to approximately 407 million.

Mobile phones

• 2000: Mobile phones were still relatively uncommon worldwide.
• 2007: Approximately 50 mobile subscriptions per 100 people.
• 2013: Mobile phones had become commonplace, with subscriptions approaching the size of the world's population.
• 2025: Approximately 9.2 billion mobile subscriptions worldwide.

The internet

• 2013: Approximately 2.56 billion internet users.
• 2025: Approximately 6 billion people using the internet.

Connected devices

• 2013: Estimates put connected devices at approximately 10 billion.
• 2025: An estimated 21.1 billion connected Internet of Things (IoT) devices alone.

And that last number does not even include ordinary smartphones, computers, laptops, tablets or landline telephones.

Sources: International Telecommunication Union, TeleGeography, Statista and IoT Analytics.

What happened to all those old telephones?

Technology didn't simply replace one thing with another. It created an entirely new manufacturing industry.

Think about what we now carry:

• Smartphones
• Tablets
• Laptops
• Smartwatches
• Wireless headphones
• Cameras
• Gaming consoles
• Smart televisions
• Home security systems
• Internet routers

Then consider what we don't necessarily see.

Factories, telecommunications equipment, satellites, network infrastructure, data centres, servers, sensors, cables and the enormous electrical systems needed to keep everything running.

Our digital lives have a physical footprint.

Every device comes from somewhere

Before a smartphone reaches a store, its components have already travelled through a complicated global supply chain.

Metals must be mined. Minerals must be processed. Components must be manufactured. Devices must be assembled, packaged and shipped.

All of this requires energy, water, land and resources.

Copper, lithium, cobalt, nickel, gold and rare earth elements are among the materials used in modern electronics.

Mining can affect forests, waterways, ecosystems and the communities living near extraction sites.

Manufacturing requires electricity and water. Transportation adds emissions. And when we replace our devices, the old ones have to go somewhere.

Some are recycled. Others are stored in drawers, sent overseas or discarded.

Electronic waste is now one of the fastest-growing waste streams in the world.

And now we have artificial intelligence

Just as we were getting used to smartphones and cloud computing, artificial intelligence arrived.

AI requires computing power, servers, data centres, cooling systems and electricity.

The digital world may appear invisible, but it is not weightless.

Every search, upload, video, online transaction and AI request depends on physical infrastructure.

That doesn't mean technology is inherently bad. It has helped us communicate, learn, access information, improve healthcare and connect people across enormous distances.

The question is whether we can continue expanding our digital world without considering its environmental consequences.

Can we make technology sustainable?

Perhaps we need to start asking different questions.

Do we really need a new phone every year?

Why are so many electronic products difficult or expensive to repair?

Why do perfectly functional devices become obsolete?

Are manufacturers taking sufficient responsibility for collecting, repairing and recycling their products?

Can we design electronics to last longer, use fewer raw materials and consume less energy?

Can governments establish stronger rules around manufacturing, repairability, recycling and electronic waste?

These are not just consumer questions. They are environmental questions.

A message to the next generation

To the young people taking governments to court over climate change, and to everyone working to protect the environment:

Remember that the climate crisis is connected to much more than fossil fuels.

It is connected to how we manufacture, consume, transport, build and dispose of things.

You are inheriting a world that has become extraordinarily dependent on technology.

You deserve technology that serves humanity without treating the planet as an unlimited warehouse of resources.

You deserve a future where innovation means finding better ways to live, not simply finding more things to manufacture and sell.

Back in 2013, I was already asking questions about the scale of electronics production and what it meant for the environment.

Today, those questions are even more important.

We cannot keep upgrading our devices while downgrading the natural world that makes our lives possible.

Perhaps progress shouldn't be measured by how many devices we own, but by how responsibly we use the resources we have.

The next generation has a right to ask those questions.

And the rest of us have a responsibility to listen.

To be continued...

Part 2 of 10 — The Environmental Series | Changerzz

Changerzz #EnvironmentalSeries #ElectronicWaste #TechnologyAndTheEnvironment #DigitalFootprint #RightToRepair #SustainableTechnology #ClimateAction #FutureGenerations #TakeBackThePlanet