Diesel Death Zones in the Amazon Empire: Environmental Justice and Algorithmically Mediated Work

Executive Summary

This paper, presented by the Centre's Research Director Sonja Solomun and Centre fellow and Microsoft Research New England researcher Rachel Bergmann at the 22nd Annual Conference of the Association of Internet Researchers, examines the intersection of environmental justice and algorithmically mediated work. It argues that the vast networks of warehouses, trucks, highways, airports, railways, and logistics hubs that constitute the infrastructure behind platform ecosystems have significant environmental consequences for the communities that physically surround them.

Although Amazon and other tech companies have funded large research projects on climate justice and made commitments to net-zero operations, the authors show that platforms' labour practices and logistics hubs continue a long legacy of environmental racism, and that economic and environmental justice remain treated as separate within the scope of Amazon's practices. The research aims to recenter communities left out of the conversation around climate justice, sustainability, technology, and carbon funds.

The case study is the San Bernardino Airport Communities Coalition (SBAC) in Southern California, whose advocacy centers on good jobs and healthy communities. Amazon, already the largest employer in the area, would enact environmental racism through construction of the Eastgate Air Cargo Logistics Center in predominantly Latino, working-class areas of Riverside and San Bernardino counties, where increased airplane and truck traffic from the hub would worsen conditions in existing "diesel death zones." The authors conclude that rights for tech workers and environmental justice are inextricably linked, and call for further research into where technology is embedded in society and the importance of centering the environment and tech workers in discussions of technology and sustainability.