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How Green Is Your Smartphone? is informed by the logic and research of climate and environmental science and political-economic and ethnographic social science, the ethical and political commitments of environmental movements, and young activists’ zero tolerance for the status quo as they seek new economic arrangements and green environments for work, rest, and play.

We’ve been teaching about these issues in several countries for over a decade, and have not always found it easy to narrow the gap between scientific and public knowledge, especially when questioning cellphones. They have become part of people’s very senses of self. Hence a polemical volume that takes a side in this elemental struggle, at the same time as it strives to communicate the current state of academic agreement and disagreement, alongside the work of governments, activists, and the media.

Of course, many people don’t think about the fate of the Earth. We didn’t write this book for them. They might pick it up just the same: like most people, they own a cellphone. Those who do so will discover that a crucial, pocket-sized part of their electronic lives is connected to a whole world in need of help. For we hope that this wee polemic will show that even the smallest changes to how we think about our digital world can contribute to a new understanding of the good life – one that prioritizes the biosphere, ecology, and a balance between human existence and the Earth’s lifesupport systems.

We remain some distance from that goal. In the early twenty-first century, the good life continues to be defined by material growth based on consumerism. The smartphone stands out in that seductive laissez-faire fable as a symbol of progress and plenitude. By contrast, this book examines the material reality and social impact of these digital technologies, with a particular focus on environmental risks linked to cellphones and similar devices.

We’re not interested in shaming users, or returning society to a time prior to mobile communication. We want to explain the environmental risks associated with these devices in a social context, and how they can be reduced. Our aim is to delineate a role for the smartphone in a greener communications system. Understanding the material characteristics of smartphones helps us identify guidelines to make them greener, on personal and planetary scales alike.

The chapters that follow urge readers to:

 Outsmart your smartphone

 Acknowledge that the greenest smartphone is the one you already own; and

 Call bullshit on anti-science propaganda