Energy Solutions (Video)

Modern slavery, which encompasses 45 million people around the world, is intricately linked to the economy, politics, violence and war, gender and the environment. In this panel discussion, Kevin Bales, professor of contemporary slavery and research director of the Rights Lab at the University of Nottingham, talks about the impact of contemporary slavery with three UC Berkeley professors, Arlie Hochschild, professor emerita, Department of Sociology, Enrique Lopezlira, Ph.D., director, Low-Wage Work Program, and Eric Stover, adjunct law professor and faculty director, Human Rights Center.

Slave-based activities, like brick making and deforestation, are estimated to generate 2.54 billion tonnes of CO2 per year – greater than the individual emissions of all the world’s nations except China and the U.S. Globally, slaves are forced to do work that is highly destructive to the environment. This work feeds directly into global consumption in foodstuffs, in minerals – both precious and for electronics – construction materials, clothing, and foodstuffs. Most of this work is unregulated leading to extensive poisoning of watersheds, the clear-cutting of forests, and enormous and unregulated emissions of carcinogenic gases as well as CO2. Political corruption supports this slave-based environmental destruction and its human damage.

Series: "UC Berkeley Graduate Lectures" [Humanities] [Science] [Business] [Show ID: 38615]

There are 45 million enslaved people in the world today. The links between slavery, conflict, environmental destruction, economics and consumption began to strengthen and evolve in the 20th century. The availability of people who might be enslaved dramatically increased in line with population growth. According to Kevin Bales, professor of contemporary slavery and research director of the Rights Lab at the University of Nottingham, the large and negative environmental impact of modern slavery is just now coming to light.

Slave-based activities, like brick making and deforestation, are estimated to generate 2.54 billion tonnes of CO2 per year – greater than the individual emissions of all the world’s nations except China and the U.S. Globally, slaves are forced to do work that is highly destructive to the environment. This work feeds directly into global consumption in foodstuffs, in minerals – both precious and for electronics – construction materials, clothing, and foodstuffs. Most of this work is unregulated leading to extensive poisoning of watersheds, the clear-cutting of forests, and enormous and unregulated emissions of carcinogenic gases as well as CO2. Political corruption supports this slave-based environmental destruction and its human damage.

Kevin Bales, CMG, FRSA is Professor of Contemporary Slavery and Research Director of the Rights Lab, University of Nottingham. He co-founded the American NGO Free the Slaves. His 1999 book Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy has been published in twelve languages. Desmond Tutu called it “a well researched, scholarly and deeply disturbing expose of modern slavery.” The film based on Disposable People, which he co-wrote, won the Peabody Award and two Emmys. The Association of British Universities named his work one of “100 World-Changing Discoveries.” In 2007 he published Ending Slavery: How We Free Today’s Slaves (Grawemeyer Award). In 2009, with Ron Soodalter, he published The Slave Next Door: Modern Slavery in the United States. In 2016 his research institute was awarded the Queens Anniversary Prize, and he published Blood and Earth: Modern Slavery, Ecocide, and the Secret to Saving the World. Check out his TEDTalk. Series: "UC Berkeley Graduate Lectures" [Humanities] [Science] [Business] [Show ID: 38614]

Lei Li is an assistant professor in Computer Science Department at University of California Santa Barbara. His research interest lies in natural language processing, machine translation, and AI-powered drug discovery. He received his B.S. from Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University. Series: "Institute for Energy Efficiency" [Science] [Show ID: 38476]

Rob Ober is Chief Platform Architect of NVIDIA’s data center products, and works with global Hyperscales to architect AI and Deep Learning clusters, develop systems and platform architecture, and influence NVIDIA hardware and software platform roadmaps. His background is in processor and system architecture, with experience in networking, storage, memories, and wireless. Rob has over 40 international patents in processor architecture, low power design, storage, networks, wireless, and mobile devices. Series: "Institute for Energy Efficiency" [Science] [Show ID: 38472]

Katharine E. Schmidtke received a B.Sc. Degree in physics and mathematics from Keele University, UK, in 1989 and Ph.D in laser physics and non-linear optics from the University of Southampton in 1993. She went on to do post-doctoral research in epitaxial growth of non-linear optical materials at Stanford University, CA, USA. She has a 25-year career in the optical communications industry including roles at Finisar, JDS Uniphase and New Focus. For the past 7 years she has worked at Facebook, Menlo Park, CA where she has driven the technology strategy for data center optical interconnects. She is currently Director of Sourcing for ASICS and Custom Silicon focused on AI/ML applications. Dr. Schmidtke is a fellow of the Optical Society of America and has been an invited speaker and served on committees for numerous international conferences, including Optical Fiber Communication Conference (OFC) European Conference on Communications (ECOC) and the Optical Interconnects Conference. Series: "Institute for Energy Efficiency" [Science] [Show ID: 38480]

Yufei Ding joined the Department of Computer Science (with a joint appointment in the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering), University of California at Santa Barbara as an Assistant Professor in Nov 2017. Her research interests lie in the broad fields of domain-specific language design, architecture and compiler optimization, and hardware acceleration. Her current research focuses on building high-performance, energy-efficient, and high-fidelity programming frameworks for emerging technologies such as quantum computing, machine learning, and deep learning. Series: "Institute for Energy Efficiency" [Science] [Show ID: 38474]

Dan Nall is a professional engineer, a registered architect, an ASHRAE and an AIA Fellow, a LEED Fellow, an ASHRAE Certified Building Energy Modeling Professional, a certified High Performance Building Design Professional and a Certified Passive House Consultant. He is currently a member of the ASHRAE Task Force for Building Decarbonization, is Chair of ASHRAE Standards Project Committee 227P, the Passive Building Design Standard, and is a member of the Commercial Buildings Working Group of the New York City Local Law 97 (Building Carbon Emissions Limitation) Advisory Group. He has been involved in building energy efficiency and HVAC engineering for 45 years. Series: "Institute for Energy Efficiency" [Science] [Show ID: 38478]

Martin Fischer is the Kumagai Professor of Engineering at Stanford University and directs the Center for Integrated Facility Engineering. He is known globally for his work and leadership in developing and applying digital methods to increase the productivity of construction project teams, enhance building performance, and create new strategic opportunities for firms in the construction industry. His award-winning research results have been used operationally and strategically by many industrial and government organizations around the world. He has co-authored the book “Integrating Project Delivery” published by Wiley in 2017, written over 100 refereed journal articles and book chapters, and given over 100 keynote lectures on his research. His work has been recognized by the ASCE Peurifoy Construction Research Award and with elections to the National Academy of Construction in the US and the Royal Academy of Engineering Sciences in Sweden.

Series: "Institute for Energy Efficiency" [Science] [Show ID: 38479]

Cliff Young is a software engineer in Google Research, where he works on codesign for deep learning accelerators. He is one of the designers of Google’s Tensor Processing Unit (TPU) and one of the founders of the MLPerf benchmark. Previously, Cliff built special- purpose supercomputers for molecular dynamics at D. E. Shaw Research and was a Member of Technical Staff at Bell Labs. Cliff holds AB, MS, and PhD degrees in computer science from Harvard University. Cliff is a member of ACM and IEEE. Series: "Institute for Energy Efficiency" [Science] [Show ID: 38473]

Mead Rusert is President of Automated Logic, a leading provider of innovative building automation and energy management solutions that maximize energy efficiency and ensure occupant comfort and engagement. With over 30 years of industry experience, he brings a broad background to the position including executive roles in engineering, product management, and marketing for commercial HVAC products at Carrier Corporation. He holds three patents related to temperature control algorithms. Mead earned a Bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Master’s degree in business administration from the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University. Series: "Institute for Energy Efficiency" [Science] [Show ID: 38477]