The CCIT holds a Seminar Series, with monthly talks, where we invite exciting scholars from around Denmark and beyond to present their ongoing research at the intersection of Climate and IT. Our goal is to select speakers that might be interesting to the interdisciplinary audience that the CCIT provides and to stimulate conversations on the myriad of different ways in which climate and digital technologies are intertwined.

Our talks will take place at ITU and on Teams between 12-13h, so bring your lunch and get inspired.

The talks are open to students, staff or interested actors from outside ITU. No registration is required.

CCIT Seminar: Explorations in Climate Sound and Society

The Center for Climate IT and AIRLab are excited to co-host Kara Oehler and Jesse Shapins, Co-Founders of the Institute for Climate Sound & Society (ICSS) for a talk titled ‘Explorations in Climate Sound & Society’. Started at metaLAB(at)Harvard University and now taking root in Copenhagen, the Institute brings together sound-based practices entangled with the climate crisis, offering new ways to sonically gather, analyze and represent data to understand changing biodiversity and ecosystems. Merging the rapidly evolving landscape of sound recording technologies such as passive acoustic monitoring and AI with long-established audio recording methods, climate sound integrates work from scientists, technologists, artists, journalists, scholars, and policymakers across bioacoustics, soundscape ecology, atmospheric science, geology, STS, media theory, landscape architecture, conservation, finance, music, and many other arenas. The Institute for Climate Sound & Society supports this growing community and is engaged in innovative research, publishing, and gatherings with the mission to advance new forms of knowledge and expand research impact. The talk introduces the Institute, presents some reflections on the role of sound and ‘sensory’ climate data and concludes with a discussion where there will be space for questions and further reflections.

Where? 3A07 or online via this link (meeting ID: 359 880 398 117 2 / password: VR6YS3Mb)

When? 12/06 from 12 – 13h

Picture credits: Oleksandr Horbach

CCIT Seminar with Guilherme Cavalcante and Priscila Santos da Costa

On May 20th, the CCIT welcomes Guilherme Cavalcante and Priscila Santos da Costa to give a talk titled The Amazon as a technology incubator: AI, smart city, and a new technopolitical regime in Canaã dos Carajás.

Guilherme Cavalcante Silva (he/him) is a PhD candidate in the Graduate Program of Science & Technology Studies at York University, Canada, bu tis currently visiting at the University of Geneva. His current research focuses on the intersections between science and technology policy and development frameworks in Latin America, with focus on Brazil. Besides his current interests, Guilherme has navigated through fields such as critical data studies, philosophy of technology, and political communication throughout his career, always concerned with the political, social, and economic implications of technological development.

Priscila is an Assistant Professor here at ITU. She is part of the Amazônia 4.0 project, where she studies how how green transitions can be implemented in practice and what role(s) new technologies may play in this regard. 

Abstract: 

Technocratic imaginaries of the Amazon are not new, The use and appropriation of technologies have long been tied to both the economic exploitation of the region and the idea of ‘modernizing’ Brazil. However, linking these imaginaries to green growth and sustainability is a more recent development. This talk will reflect on the construction of the Brazilian Amazon as a ‘connected’ and innovation-oriented region through the meeting of two technological visions: on one side, the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and the smart city agenda as tools for building Brazil’s international technological profile; and on the other, the case of Canaã dos Carajás, a small city in the state of Pará, located 750 km from Belém (which will host COP30 in 2025), and home to the world’s largest iron ore mine. This 30-year-old city, which saw its population and GDP per capita surge after the mine’s discovery, has become the site of one of Brazil’s first AI-oriented smart city initiatives (project).

By tracing the framing of Canaã dos Carajás as a smart city and unpacking the AI imaginaries tied to national public initiatives, this presentation (based on work currently in progress) explores the narratives that reimagine the Amazon as a technological incubator.

When? May 20th from 12-13h

Where? in 2A50, or online via this link (meeting ID: 318 279 573 921/ password: MY9Ff3J4)

Picture credits: Juan Orestes

CCIT Seminar with Melissa Gregg: Computing after Carbon

On May 2nd, we will be joined by Prof. Melissa Gregg for a talk titled 'Computing after Carbon'. Melissa is an author, ethnographer and sustainability consultant focused on design and engineering initiatives to address climate change. Her research provides guidance on carbon emissions reduction, circular economy, nature-based thinking and Green UX. She is an advisor on sustainability strategy at Meta Reality Labs and Professor of Digital Futures at the University of Bristol Business School. She is also active in land and bird conservation in her home state of lutruwita/Tasmania.

Abstract:

As tech companies emerged from COVID-19, a supercharged hype-cycle focused on advancements in AI took the place of worries about return to work mandates and employees "quiet quitting." Facing scrutiny from boards and investors looking for a reliable return on investment, companies claiming to be at the forefront of progressive action on climate took an axe to their workforce, using AI competitiveness as the excuse. In so doing, some of the biggest high-tech employers lost a generation of leaders with the skills and experience to influence companies towards alternatives to personal computing paradigms inherited from the fossil-fuel era. All the while, carbon emissions from AI workloads appeared poised to place Net Zero commitments worldwide at risk.
Learning from these stories, which includes first-hand experience, this talk explores some of the limitations in sustainability strategy in corporate IT, and the challenges that the new US administration poses to climate action. It also shares positive examples of individuals and groups building alternative means to scale low carbon computing to unsettle business as usual.

When: May 2nd from 10-11.30

Where: AUD 4 or online via this link (meeting ID: 334 481 717 781/ password: Z7dw6Jt6)

Picture credits: USGS

CCIT Seminar with Neil Selwyn: Digital Degrowth ... perhaps *not* the worst idea on the planet?

On April 24th, about a month before his book 'Digital Degrowth' comes out, we are joined by Professor Neil Selwyn (Monash University, Lund University) for a talk titled "Digital degrowth ... perhaps *not* the worst idea on the planet?" Coming from the tech Education angle, Neil has for the past 30 years researched the integration of digital technology into schools, universities and adult learning. He is recognised as a leading international researcher in the area of digital education and is currently working on nationally-funded projects examining the roll-out of educational data and learning analytics, AI technologies, and the changing nature of teachers' digital work.

Abstract:

In 2020, Wired magazine declared degrowth to be ‘the worst idea on the planet’. Three years later, Marc Andreessen called out degrowth as a ‘bad idea’ and an ‘enemy’ to technological progress. Taking inspiration from Andrew Ahern’s observation that ‘degrowth pisses off all the right people’, Neil Selwyn considers what degrowth and post-growth thinking might have to offer those looking to radically break away from the destructive modes of digital excess that have come to define the first few decades of the twenty-first century. In short, this talk considers a deceptively simple question – how might degrowth thinking support ambitions of sustainable, scaled-down and equitable ways of living with digital technologies?

After first sketching out what a philosophy of digital degrowth might look like, this talk will lay out various instances where alternate post-capitalist forms of digital technology are already being realized around the world. It also highlights a range of emerging ideas, innovations and experiments that point to possible future forms of ‘radically sustainable computing’. While we should not be naive about the difficulties of any such change, Neil concludes that solid foundations already are in place from which to establish digital degrowth as a social movement that is locally determined and aligned with a wider societal decoupling from economic growth and capitalist imperatives.

Where: AUD 3 and online via this link (Meeting ID: 338 965 341 88 / password: pE79Gg7g)
When: April 24th from 12.00 – 13.00

Image credits: United States Geographical Survey

CCIT Seminar with Prof. Tilmann Rabl: Ecological Efficiency in Database Servers

On March 20th, we are joined by Prof Tilmann Rabl, a professor for database systems at the Hasso Plattner Institute and the University of Potsdam, Germany for the talk: Ecological Efficiency in Database Servers. His research focuses on data processing and management in large scale systems, on modern hardware, and in streaming applications. Besides efficiency improvements, he is interested in making systems and applications friendlier for the environment and society in general.

Abstract:
For the longest time, acquiring new hardware resulted in significant software efficiency gains due to exponential improvements of hardware capabilities. Physical limits in hardware manufacturing have brought former niche designs into standard components, such as multiple cores and specialized circuits. Even with these new designs, hardware improvements are decreasing, while software and applications are still becoming increasingly complex and resource demanding. This trend is pronounced for database systems, which are not the major target for current hardware optimizations.
In this talk, we will discuss hardware and cloud trends and their ecological impact. We will introduce ecological efficiency of database system deployments. We will discuss hardware trends and their impact on database systems. We will look at our research on the design of efficient software architectures and give an outlook on our vision of holistically optimizing the ecological efficiency of database deployments.

Where: 2A08 and online via this link (Meeting ID: 356 576 531 302 / password: Pv6KF6WX)

When: March 20th from 12.00-13.00

Picture credits: Vick Taylor

CCIT Seminar: Embracing the Ambivalent Green Transition

In March, the CCIT will be visited by the brilliant Megan Maurer, who is currently an Assistant Professor at the Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management (KU). She will dive into the fractured nature of experiences around urban nature and nature-bases solutions (NBS) with a talk titled ‘Embracing the Ambivalent Green Transition’. A cultural anthropologist by training, she is interested in interdisciplinary examinations of the relationships among people and plants in cities.

Abstract:

We face inter-related crises of climate change, biodiversity loss, and increasing urbanisation and inequality that require immediate action. Nature-based solutions (NBS) offer key contributions to urban green transitions while fitting neatly within existing governance regimes aimed at optimising performance via data-driven technological / infrastructural interventions. As ever more sophisticated forms of data collection and assessment are being used to guide urban NBS planning, design, and implementation, these interventions face resistance from urban residents due to social unacceptability and unjust outcomes, troubling the prospect of an ‘optimal’ outcome. These challenges indicate needs for qualifying different types of data by engaging diverse values of nature and knowledge systems and accounting for the multivalent, lived experience of urban environments. Moreover, they reveal a gap in knowledge regarding the negative contributions of nature (e.g., ecosystems disservices, disvalues of nature)—in particular, how these can be described and assessed across different scales, and how they shape the formation of urban residents’ preferences and practices regarding urban nature and NBS. Drawing together on-going and prospective work in Copenhagen and New York City, I consider the role of spatial-qualitative and place-based methods for identifying ‘the bad things’ in urban nature and residents’ experiences of ambivalence, or the co-occurrence of both positive and negative nature perceptions and experiences. Furthermore, I discuss how the integration of these approaches with other forms of social, spatial, and ecological data through a social-ecological-technological systems analysis can reveal multi-scalar pathways of ambivalent value formation and their role in shaping urban nature preferences and practices. The goal of this analysis is two-fold: (1) to explore methodological possibilities for the integration of large-scale data, participatory digital methods, and ethnographic approaches in research for urban green transitions; and (2) to provide an empirical basis from which to propose a more socially acceptable and just approach to urban NBS planning, design, and management through prioritising living with ambivalence, rather than optimisation.

When? 14/3 from 12.00 – 13.00

Where? 3A08 and online via this link (meeting ID: 369 724 452 811/ password: uq3d4oM3)

Picture credits: Beeing

CCIT Seminar: Equity in Action’ or Equity Inaction? New Orleans, Digital Technology, and the United States’ National Flood Insurance Program

One more interesting seminar coming your way! On March 5^th from 14.00 – 15.00 we are joined by Martin Abott, who will present a talk titled ‘'Equity in Action’ or Equity Inaction? New Orleans, Digital Technology, and the United States’ National Flood Insurance Program, followed as always by a discussion. Martin is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Science and Technology Studies at Cornell University. His research is focused on how new and emerging technologies and environmental change intersect in the city. Martin holds a Master of Architecture from the University of Technology, Sydney, and a Master of Arts in Political Sociology from Sciences Po Paris.

Abstract:

In this talk, I examine how being flood smart and the notion of equity are reshaping the future of the United States’ National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). After Hurricane Katrina, scholars showed that Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) disaster recovery programs favored white communities and deepened racial wealth gaps. To address this inequity, I take up calls to scrutinize the disproportionate impacts of flooding and planning mechanisms that perpetuate inequality. I argue that the label of ‘smart’ and digital technologies associated with it conceal, rather than confront, a long history of inequity in FEMA’s programs. In the NFIP, smartness is mobilized as a rhetorical practice to market and sell flood insurance. Recently, an emerging smart technology called “Risk Rating 2.0: Equity in Action” has transformed flood insurance pricing. While FEMA describes Risk Rating 2.0 as an engine of equity, I show how the rating methodology targets economic fairness only. Social and environmental equity, among other intersections of race, class, and gender, are not factored into the new pricing methodology’s algorithm. As emerging smart technologies reform the NFIP, being flood smart calls into question how and why flooding affects some people more than others.

Where? 2A08 or online via this link (Meeting ID: 358 158 928 651/ password: 6me9gW7L)

When? March 5^th from 14.00 – 15.00

Image credits: doosenwhacker

CCIT Seminar: Information Environmental Justice: Digital Infrastructures, Data ideologies and Transnational Activism

On Feb 27th, we are visited by Tim Schütz, who has agreed to give a talk whilst he is in town. Tim is a PhD student at University of California Irvine’s Department of Anthropology. Join us either online and offline for an interesting discussion!

Abstract:
In the face of escalating environmental crises, digital infrastructures are becoming critical sites of struggle, mediating how environmental harm is documented, contested, and governed. My research examines how activists, researchers, and affected communities leverage digital tools to counter corporate practices and state neglect in the petrochemical industry. Based on three years of multi-sited ethnographic research in the United States, Taiwan, and Vietnam, my talk explores the development of the Formosa Plastics Global Archive, a digital knowledge commons that supports transnational environmental justice movements. I trace how data ideologies—assumptions about what counts as legitimate knowledge—shape activist strategies and how digital infrastructures can both enable and constrain efforts to make environmental injustices visible. By situating these initiatives within broader debates on digital sustainability and environmental governance, I argue that digital infrastructures are not just technical artifacts but sites of political struggle that shape the possibilities for green transitions. I’ll share insights I’ve gained building the Formosa Plastics Global Archive, while also helping develop the Platform for Experimental Collaborative Ethnography (PECE), an open source platform designed by and for qualitative researchers. 

When? Feb 27^th from 10.00 -11.00

Where? 2A08 and online via this link (meeting ID: 358 384 152 998 / password: DS6bJ3Lz)

Photo credits: Nick Fewings

CCIT Seminar on the use of open source tools for land use and land cover change monitoring

Join us for a CCIT Seminar on land use change, where we are joined by Maria Sinziiana and two ITU alumni, Aske Meineche and Viktor Due. They present a paper that they have previously presented at the conference SIGSPATIAL in Atlanta, US.

Abstract

The availability of moderate and high-resolution satellite imagery collections and advancements in large scale cloud computing have created opportunities to develop globally consistent and near real time (NRT) land use and land cover (LULC) classification products. Such products have in turn facilitated the monitoring of land use and land cover change (LULCC) at a much larger scale than before. This is essential in understanding and analysing the competition for space in the context of a rapidly growing population, increasing standard of living, and a strained ecosystem. Several studies pointed towards inaccuracies and spatial and typology bias in LULC classification products. In this paper we investigate the feasibility of utilizing publicly available, pretrained models for LULCC analysis. We describe a framework for large scale analysis that allows incorporating diverse sources of data and we discuss a case study of quantifying LULCC driven by green energy infrastructure expansion. We introduce the concept of Rapid Change Sequences which can be used to improve classification accuracy. Lastly, we propose a method to produce vector embeddings of the LULC change graph, which is the first tool to allow cross country comparisons of land use change dynamics.

When? Feb 25th from 12.00-13.00

Where? 2A08 or online (Meeting ID: 373 365 939 245 / Password: kS92Xd7y)

Picture credits: Nicolas van Leekwijck

CCIT Seminar: Ekhilur and Money for Life

Time to discuss degrowth! Join us for this interesting seminar, where Florencia Radeljak, PhD student from the University of Lund, will present an ethnography of a local, digital money network in the Basque Country, Spain.

Abstract:

Actor Network Theory (ANT)-oriented scholars explore how associations evolve between material and semiotic elements in networks, but critical debates on digital money and sustainability show ANT fails to consider more political questions and a calls for collective action, understood as the project of assembling new entities not yet gathered (Latour, 2005). In the presentation I will explore what connections allow the enactment of degrowth principles in digital money. Degrowth is an economic, ecological and socio-cultural challenge decolonizing Western cultural representations of ‘growth’ and ‘development’, and the institutions, values and practices that derive from these cultural paradigms. I use concepts from ANT and Design for the Pluriverse to explore how a community in the Basque Country (Spain) is designing a digital payment system called Ekhilur, aimed at fostering a socio-ecological transition aligned with degrowth principles. Using a qualitative methodology that consisted of five days of participant observation and five in-deph interviews with the members of the system’s governing body, I identify the main characteristics of the digital money, and the connections between the different elements in the money network. I highlight the emergent processes of the system and reflect on the money’s digital nature in relation to the scalability of the project. The discussion contributes to the broader debate on the complex relationship between money, technology, and sustainability, emphasizing the importance of politicizing the networks that underpin digital money to advance a sustainability model centered on collective interests.

Where? 3A08 or online here (Meeting ID: 343 021 854 828/ Password: dH7XR3zB)

When? February 17th, 10.00 - 11.00

Picture credits: Nico Bermudez

CCIT Seminar: Valuing energy and nature in bureaucratic practice

Join us for our exciting Valentine's Day Seminar – Valuing energy and nature in bureaucratic practice – with Ask Johansen (AAU).

Ask is a Postdoc at the department of Sustainability and Planning at Aalborg University and has worked extensively on valuation with regards to the green transition.

Abstract:

To sufficiently respond to climate change and environmental degradation, governing bodies need to value natural resources and environments differently. This is a guiding intuition for my research on the role of the bureaucracy in 'green transitions'. In this talk I engage with how municipal and state bureaucracies experiment with formats for valuing nature. The notion of bureaucracy evokes a sense of rigidity, and scholars have in various ways described how decision making processes in many states are dominated by neoclassical economic reasoning. Such reasoning takes value as natural given and thus limits how bureaucracies may modify valuing practices. But bureaucracies in practice are also sites of continuous change, experimentation, and adaptation, where multiple voices and reasonings circulate. Drawing on ethnographic work in urban- and energy planning offices in Denmark, I describe how nature is valued differently through various tools such as energy system models, stakeholder consultation formats, spreadsheets, reports and policy documents, and GIS data. Taking bureaucratic practice as material, fluid, multiple, and deeply involved in the enactment of value, opens an interesting space for research on and intervention in how nature is valued -- but the intervention part is tricky! So I will end with some reflections on my limited successes in that regard and hope for an engaged discussion.

When? 14/2 from 12.00 – 13.00

Where? 3A08 or online via this link (meeting ID: 355 973 782 678 / password: F3Uo7vy6)

Picture Credits: Claus Jensen