Greening the Web with Michelle Thorne

ThingsCon Stories

S01E01: Our guest today is Michelle Thorne, senior program manager at Mozilla Foundation, co-publisher of Branch, an online magazine about the sustainable internet, and a ThingsCon Fellow. The internet as it is today is a massive contributor to environmental issues: All the energy that powers servers, connections, and our computers — the whole network — emits a ridiculous amount of carbon. In this episode we discuss options for making the web greener and more sustainable — carbon neutral! — and what role AI can play in this effort.

About Michelle:

Michelle Thorne (@thornet) is interested in climate justice and a fossil-free internet. As a Senior Program Officer at the Mozilla Foundation, Michelle leads a PhD program on Open Design of Trust Things (OpenDoTT) with Northumbria University and research initiatives as an Environmental Champion in Mozilla’s Sustainability Program. She publishes Branch, an online magazine written by and for people who dream about a sustainable internet. Michelle co-founded a sustainable fashion label, Zephyr Berlin.

She is member of ClimateAction.Tech, a network of tech workers accelerating climate action. She is also a jury member of the Protoype Fund, which supports open source projects in civic tech, data literacy, data security and software infrastructure and a Thinker in Residence at Climate KIC. Michelle founded Mozilla’s Open Internet of Things Studio, Ding magazine, the Mozilla Festival and a web literacy program called Maker Party. Michelle managed the Creative Commons international affiliate network from 2007 – 2010.

Links:

• Learn more about Michelle on her website and follow Michelle on Twitter.
• Branch is an online magazine written by and for people who dream of a sustainable and just internet for all.
• The Museum of the Fossilized Internet by Gabi Ivens, Michelle Thorne and Joana Moll
• Climate Action Tech
• Mozilla’s Greenhouse Gas emissions baseline