SHADE Newsletter 3rd October 2024

Welcome to the twenty third edition of the SHADE newsletter! 

SHADE is a research hub with a mission to explore issues at the intersection of digital technologies/AI, health and the environment. It is guided by a fundamental question: How should the balance between AI/digital enabled health and planetary health be struck in different areas of the world, and what should be the guiding principles?

The SHADE newsletter comes out every two weeks, bringing you a selection of the latest news, upcoming events, academic publications and podcasts in the SHADE space.

In this newsletter, we highlight research summaries and collections. We take a sweep through early warning systems, climate and health data integration and how expectations of digital and AI can make us blind to arguably less glamorous, although proven, health care solutions. We check in on how tech has triggered a race for nuclear energy as a means to meet climate targets, call out NICE, revisit scope 3 emissions and grid aware computing, as well as catching up on cancer rates, mental health, genomics, AMR, Digital Public Goods and much more.  We hope you enjoy it!

Please tell us what you like, what you don’t like and what you think is missing at [email protected].   

Highlight on Research Summaries and Collections

• As SHADE approaches its first anniversary, we summarise what SHADE’s research has revealed, and what SHADE proposes in response.

• In the run up to COP29, PLOS shares its collection of articles on Climate Change and Human Health.

• Check out this open access bibliography on Critical Data Centre Studies.

News

• Three stories on digital for climate and health: Firstly, after disastrous landslides in July, there are plans to deploy the Amrita Landslide Early Warning System (A-LEWS) in Wayanad, Kerala in India. Secondly, Nature reports on the increasing use of AI in disaster early warning systems and finally the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) and the World Health Organisation (WHO) draft a 3 year action agenda for achieving better integration of climate and health data.

• Meanwhile this blog from BMJ Leader calls for normalising plant-based meals in healthcare to improve the health of patients and staff, reduce our environmental impact and save money. It argues that we are being distracted from evidence based, effective interventions such as this by looking for ‘magic bullet’ technology and AI solutions to the challenges facing the UK’s NHS.

• The UK Health Alliance on Climate Change publish their latest letter to NICE on the urgency of incorporating measurement of environmental impact into their work. The letter asks if NICE (the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence in the UK) are “allowing the best to be the enemy of the good”. It also questions whether NICE’s caution stems from fear of reactions from government, the media or health industry players.

• Following in Big Tech’s wake, banks get on the nuclear bandwagon in a bid to meet climate targets. Meanwhile the UK’s financial watchdog has bowed to pressure to relax disclosure rules for companies investing in, for example, AI that could mean some people are unable to obtain health insurance.

• The Greening Digital Companies 2024 report is out. It evaluates the greenhouse gas emissions and energy use of 200 leading digital companies across the world. These are going up in the global tech sector and scope 3 (or value chain) emissions are on average six times greater than scope 1 and scope 2 emissions combined.

• California based OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, is in the process of transforming from a not for profit to a for profit company and under pressure to stay at the cutting edge of AI research. Its latest ChatGPT model has impressed scientists, including those working in molecular biology. Its latest funding round will allow it to increase compute capacity and makes it one of the most valuable start ups in the world. This is just as a California bill, which would have imposed some of the first regulations on AI in the US, is blocked.

What we’re listening to

• Two recent episodes of Environment Variables look at incorporating grid awareness into, first carbon aware computing testbeds, and second forecasting for renewable energy.

• This Health Foundation podcast asks why are cancer rates rising among younger people? It explores the possible influence of environmental factors, and how AI might contribute to addressing the problem.

• This episode of the Your Brain on Climate podcast looks at the effects of heat on mental health. 

What we’re reading

• A study in the Lancet reveals the global burden of antimicrobial resistance in the last couple of decades, and forecasts the burden going forward to 2050. This Nature news feature explores the link between AMR and climate change.

• Predicting: The Future of Health? from the Ada Lovelace Institute. This report, two years in the making, looks at the potential, risks and benefits of using AI powered genomic health prediction (AIGHP) in the UK health system. It acknowledges the environmental impacts of AIGHP, although these aren’t the report’s focus. Its recommendations include giving priority to addressing the environmental determinants of healthcare outcomes over providing the whole population with insight into genomic variations in disease risk.

• Sustainable AI: Closing the Global Climate Action Gap. Kenrya Rankin interviews Priya Donti, Chair of Climate Action AI.

• The Hamburg Climate Futures Outlook 2024 looks at the Conditions for Sustainable Climate Adaptation. Building on a ‘plausibility of climate futures’ methodology, it provides a unique systematic and global assessment of the context conditions for sustainable climate change adaptation with nine case studies providing insights into key barriers and opportunities.

• "In recent years AI research has acquired an unhealthy taste for scale”: Hype, Sustainability and the Price of the Bigger Is Better Paradigm in AI looks at the false assumptions behind the idea that larger AI systems are better and the adverse consequences resulting from this idea, both environmental and in terms of AI applications in areas including health.

• Frontiers in Public Health reports on the progress made in digitalising antimicrobial resistance surveillance in a One Health approach in Kenya. This has been made possible by the use of Digital Public Goods (DPGs), including DHIS2, the world’s largest health information management system. DPGs Decoded highlights how DPGs, in health and other sectors, enhance digital sovereignty, avoid vendor lock ins and generally contribute to economic, social and environmental sustainability.

• Two timely reports from the Green Web Foundation: The first, featuring ‘chronic potentialitis’, and ‘predatory delay’, covers what you need to know if you are considering using AI and you are concerned about its environmental impact. The second, Critical Dependencies: Power Consolidation of Digital Infrastructures, seeks to help funders who want to better understand how to strengthen the public’s interest in digital infrastructure at a systemic rather than symptomatic level.

• The Digital Economy Report (DER) 2024. DERs from the UN come out every 2 years - this is the first one that focusses on the environmental impacts of digitalisation.

Events

• Find out how to get involved in Digital Health Week which is happening 4th to 10th November 2024. Its themes include Climate Change and Digital Health.

• Earth Friendly Computation: Applying Indigenous Data Lifecycles in Medical and Sovereign AI. This session will take place at the Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing 2025 happening on the Big Island of Hawaii between January 4th and 8th 2025. For early registration fees, register by October 31st.

• The Turing Lectures: Can we live with AI? is a hybrid event happening on December 9th at 7.30pm UK time.

Opportunities

• Environmental Research: Health (ERH) is calling for submissions for a Focus on Adaptation and Mitigation Strategies for Health. The submission window closes on 31st March 2025. Early submissions are welcomed, will be reviewed promptly and accepted papers will be published incrementally.

• The role of leadership in planetary health: A call for papers from BMJ Leader.

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