"One must praxis with oil to understand oil. One must praxis with words to find new ways of circulating meaning. I call this ‘Heliotechnics/Heliotechniques’." Read this piece by Elia Vargas (and others!) in Issue 6.1 of the Journal of Environmental Media: intellectdiscover.com/content/jour...
My commentary 'AI is Trash' is now out with the Journal of Environmental Media! doi.org/10.1386/jem_... It's an attempt to be constructively pessimistic about the state of genAI, its political economy, and its environmental impacts. I curse! I grump!
Even when asked specifically only about environmental harm, the output ends with a reorientation away from that topic ("But there are a lot of efforts to stop this!") and a suggestion for the user to investigate those proposed solutions.
Summary: The carbon footprint of generative AI is significant due to energy-intensive training and massive inference demand. Without conscious management, generative AI could contribute noticeably to global carbon emissions. But advances in efficiency, renewable energy, and smarter AI design are helping reduce this footprint. If you want, I can share more detailed numbers, or examples of efforts to green AI. Would that be useful?
Prompt: What are the environmental dangers of generative AI?
Summary: Climate change poses risks to AI’s physical and operational ecosystem. AI development might be forced to become more sustainable and energy-efficient. AI can be a powerful tool to fight climate change but also risks worsening it if energy use isn’t managed responsibly. Do you want to dive deeper into any of these points? Or maybe explore how AI can specifically help in climate adaptation?
Prompt: What is the long term climate impact on AI?
Wow this was a fascinating and terrifying thread Sarah, I think you should write the paper!
Is anyone researching the way that ChatGPT ends its responses with a recommendation of what to ask it next? Are there systematic studies of this? Because, anecdotally, it seems to function very similarly to search and content recommendation systems that direct the user's inquiry in particular ways.
A photograph of Lisa Yin Han smiling at the camera, pictured outside in front of a tree and a grassy background, and is wearing metal glasses and a botanical printed top.
Fleck Prize winner for 2025!
Lisa Yin Han’s Deepwater Alchemy: Extractive Mediation and the Taming of the Sea Floor
4sonline.org/2025_lisa_yi...
Everyday ecofascism is next on my list!
Deepwater Alchemy is officially on audiobook! Narrated by the incredible @cindykay.bsky.social who brought this book to life in a way I could never have imagined. Thank you @tantoraudio.bsky.social for adapting this! @uminnpress.bsky.social
I got a chance to be back in conversation with Jonathan Bate for his Blue Humanities podcast! Episode is now live here: open.spotify.com/episode/7D4T... @uminnpress.bsky.social
🎧 "Infrastructure is invisible until it breaks." A thoughtful conversation between Lisa Yin Han ( @thehanopticon.bsky.social ) and Gloria Chan-Sook Kim, thinking elementally on microbes, ocean, catastrophic deferral, scalar mediation, resolution, the plume, + more. share.transistor.fm/s/f3b95b9a
This is true in Indiana, too.
I cannot afford ONE academic database for my LMC with my entire annual budget, let alone the dozens provided by the state library.
Today on the Edge Effects Podcast, we warmly welcome environmental humanities authors Sarah Dimick, Lisa Han, and Ben Stanley for a first-of-its-kind special episode about their newly published books. We hope you enjoy!📚 edgeeffects.net/sarah-dimick...
Listening to @melhogan.bsky.social’s Data Fix podcast and bouncing in my seat listening to @thehanopticon.bsky.social talking about the sea floor. This is the specific book I need!! (Ordered it before I even finished listening.)
Best part of my week was playing Citizen Sleeper 2. What an amazing game and story! 5 stars highly recommend
Cant wait to talk oceans and extraction at McGill today for the Art History and Communication Studies series! Come see me this afternoon: www.mcgill.ca/ahcs/events/...
Are you an #envhum scholar looking to make a difference for the field?
Become a co-editor of the journal Environmental Humanities!
We need a new set of 2 co-editors to replace Franklin & I from Jan 2026. See the call here:
environmentalhumanities.org
Contact us if you have any questions.
The call for this year’s digital methods summer school is out! I did this during grad school and found it so helpful to explore and think deeply about methodologies for examining digital power. Highly recommend! The focus is on social media and AI this year www.digitalmethods.net/Dmi/SummerSc...
Tomorrow at UCLA! Elizabeth Deloughrey and I will be having a conversation about our favorite topic: the blue humanities!
Probably time to share my film/media history starter pack again. A treasure trove of great folks in here! (Part II linked below...always adding more) go.bsky.app/12Wo3y5 #history #mediahistory #filmhistory #histbookchat #booksky
Around 35% of SpaceX’s revenue comes directly from the federal govt.
Less than 1% of NPR’s budget comes from the federal govt.
The state of publishing dominating the academic ecosystem
journals.librarypublishing.arizona.edu/jpe/article/...
Oh my god is it really not Friday or February yet
A delightful sight! Can’t wait to dig in
Media and STS friends! There's just 3 days left to submit your paper abstracts to our #4S2025 Open panel, Reverberation and/as Mediation. Submit by Feb 2 here: www.4sonline.org/accepted_ope... Feel free to contact me or @mojojojosef.bsky.social for questions!
Oops, the last part got cut off! Finishing move: Boil until the dumplings float, then eat with a sauce of black vinegar, sesame oil, and crushed raw garlic (if you’re brave)! That's the Han family way!
Happy Spring festival / Chinese new year! Gong xi fa cai! It's the year of the snake, a time to be intuitive, creative, and wise! And of course, cunning with our resistance and disobedience 🐍 🧧
To celebrate, I'm sharing my family's actual authentic dumpling recipe. You're welcome, Bluesky! 😜
In case you ever wondered what this whole Doomsday Clock thing is about
youtu.be/Q5WtaWdXIT0?...
how, specifically, does freezing research dollars hurt your state's economy?
link for deets by state. keep in mind this is separate from all the other programs that support public schools, provide food for kids, supplies for hospitals, equipment for infrastructure.
www.faseb.org/science-poli...
