Eleventh International Conference on Climate Change: Impacts & Responses

Abstract

Climate change is one of the world’s biggest challenges today, which has a pervasive impact on every living organism. Human behavior is the main cause of the challenge. There is consensus among scientists that the root cause of the crisis is human expansion of the “greenhouse effect.” Finding ways of changing human behavior is one of the most effective solutions to minimize the impact of this disturbing trend on earth. Number of people using variety of digital services are increasing everyday. Various research studies have shown that users usually follow the recommendation of these services without questioning or assessing their trustworthiness. This article provides a brief introduction to the idea of accountable algorithms and information systems to develop the concept of “ecological software accountability.” It then covers Google Maps as a specific use case in detail. We show biases in Google Maps incentivize people to either use their own personal car or app-based taxi services such as Uber, Lyft, others. Consequently, we discuss and demonstrate that even a small reduction of the existing biases in navigation systems can result in a lower amount of annual greenhouse gas emission. Finally, using real-world examples, we propose that bias minimization in software needs to be complemented by “eco-friendly nudging mechanisms” as an attempt to influence human behavior maximizing the positive outcome. Both strategies can be achieved by adoption of value-based software design approaches, in which ecological factors and other values are considered as basic design requirements.