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Gaia’s Web - Karen Bakker ***

Sadly deceased in 2023, Karen Bakker combined geographical, environmental and technology interests, a crossover that she presented in her last book, Gaia’s Web. The idea here is to make use of the abilities of modern information technology, from machine learning to specialist sensors and satellite data to monitor both the state of the environment and those who are misusing it.

As such there is some fascinating material here. Bakker shows the power of digital eco-surveillance to protect the environment from everything from overfishing to forest fires, but emphasises rightly the accompanying danger that the same technologies can be used for surveillance by states. But Bakker sometimes undermines her own powerful arguments by taking a simplistic academic’s ‘capitalism bad’ approach that fails to recognise that without capitalism we wouldn’t have all this wonderful technology. There’s hypocrisy here. 

This leads to the (highly confusing) sentence: ‘Researchers have raised concerns that some contemporary discourses about conservation conflate security and environmental concerns; in some cases, conservation agencies become use [sic] violent force against people they identify as poachers, counterinsurgents or terrorists.’ It’s not really clear what is being said, but is the argument that taking action against poachers is good, but not against terrorists?

In an effort to remain approachable, some of the text can be oversimplistic to the point of being inaccurate. As something of a fan of Nagel’s famous ‘What is it like to be a bat?’ paper, I am uncomfortable with level of anthropomorphism used in the opening story about orcas. Much of the text is effusive, sometimes leading to hyperbole such as ‘digital trackers are affixed to the tiniest of insects’. Actually it’s only possible with midsized insects. Tiny insects like thunder flies are still far too small as yet.

Topics outside the author’s direct areas of interest can feel under-researched. Sadly, we get one of the most commonly wheeled out incorrect history of science clichés: no, Ada Lovelace did not ‘write the first computer program’. Another frequently used doubtful piece of information, stated as if it were fact, is that ‘ even a handful of Google searches used significant energy - equivalent to boiling a kettle to make a cup of tea’ - but the source is the Daily Telegraph, not the original researcher behind this 2009 story, who didn’t say that, and whose figures are way out of date. (To be fair, Bakker does point to the way IT companies are reducing carbon footprint, though rather spoils this by suggesting it’s just to look good. That has to be part of it, just as it is when academics posture, but most of the IT people I speak to genuinely care for the environment.)

The problems with the book are irritating because Bakker’s message is largely right. There’s a lot that’s interesting in this book, yet it could have been so much better.

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Review by Brian Clegg - See all Brian's online articles or subscribe to a weekly email free here

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