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Lexicon

A B C D E F G I L M N P R S T V W

A

  • Abiotic: In biology and ecology, abiotic components or abiotic factors are non-living chemical and physical parts of the environment that affect living organisms and the functioning of ecosystems. (Source: Wikipedia)

  • ADSL: Asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) is a type of digital subscriber line (DSL) technology, a data communications technology that enables faster data transmission over copper telephone lines than a conventional voiceband modem can provide. (Source: Wikipedia)

B

  • Biocapacity: The biocapacity or biological capacity of an ecosystem is an estimate of its production of certain biological materials such as natural resources, and its absorption and filtering of other materials such as carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Biocapacity is expressed in terms of global hectares per person, thus is dependent on human population. A global hectare is an adjusted unit that represents the average biological productivity of all productive hectares on Earth in a given year (because not all hectares produce the same amount of ecosystem services). (Source: Wikipedia).

  • Biosphere: all living organisms in the air, on land and in the oceans

C

  • Cloud computing: Cloud computing is an infrastructure in which computing power and storage are managed by remote servers to which users connect via a secure Internet link. (Source: futura-sciences.com)

  • CMIP: In climatology, the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) is a collaborative framework designed to improve knowledge of climate change. wikipedia

  • Collapse informatics: inspired by the American researcher Bill Tomlinson, "collapse informatics" is an emerging stream of research in human-computer interaction, which is interested in "the study, design, and development of socio-technical systems in the present of abundance that will be usable in a future of scarcity" - in other words, how to design digital systems today that can be used after the possible collapse of our civilization due (in particular) to the ecological crisis. (Source transitions2.net)

  • Cryosphere: the land or sea ice, the snow cover

D

  • Datacenter: A datacenter is a physical site where computer installations (servers, routers, switches, hard disks...) are grouped together to store and distribute data through an internal network or via an Internet access. (Source futura-sciences.com)

  • DEEE: Electronic waste or E-waste describes discarded electrical or electronic devices. Used electronics which are destined for refurbishment, reuse, resale, salvage recycling through material recovery, or disposal are also considered E-waste. Informal processing of E-waste in developing countries can lead to adverse human health effects and environmental pollution. (Source: Wikipedia)

  • Depletion: depletion of metals (in this field)

  • Digital modelling: Numerical modelling consists in building a set of mathematical functions describing the phenomenon. By modifying the initial variables, it is possible to predict changes in the physical system (Source: FuturaSciences)

  • Digital science: Digital is a science that allows the representation and manipulation of information in the form of numbers, various technologies and computers as well as telecommunications and storage infrastructures. And it is also an industry and a culture that has invested all the fields of our society, starting with our daily life.

  • Digital Service: The digital service refers to all the human, software and hardware resources necessary to provide a service.

E

  • Eco-organization: in France, a private company owned by producers and distributors to take charge, within the framework of the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), of the end-of-life of the equipment they put on the market (source: Wikipedia)

  • Ecological Footprint: The ecological footprint measures the amount of bioproductive land area needed to produce the goods and services we consume and absorb the waste we produce (Source: wwf.panda.org)

  • EEE: for electrical and electronic equipment

  • Emission intensity: Emission intensities are used to derive estimates of air pollutant or greenhouse gas emissions based on the amount of fuel combusted, the number of animals in animal husbandry, on industrial production levels, distances traveled or similar activity data. (Source: Wikipedia)

  • Euthrophication: it is the process by which an entire body of water, or parts of it, becomes progressively enriched with minerals and nutrients, particularly nitrogen and phosphorus (Source Wikipedia)

  • Exponential growth: we speak of exponential growth when the increase of a quantity per unit of time is proportional to the quantity itself. It is a multiplication.

F

G

  • GDPR: General Data Protection Regulation is a regulation in EU law on data protection and privacy in the European Union (EU) and the European Economic Area (EEA). The GDPR is an important component of EU privacy law and of human rights law, in particular Article 8(1) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. (Source: Wikipedia)

  • Global Warming Potential (GWP): is the heat absorbed by any greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, as a multiple of the heat that would be absorbed by the same mass of carbon dioxide (CO2). GWP is 1 for CO2. (Source: Wikipedia)

  • Greenhouse effect is a proven physical phenomenon. Without it, the global temperature of the earth would be -18°C whereas it is around 15°C. It is Joseph Fourier (1768 - 1830) who described in 1824 the phenomenon now called "greenhouse effect": the earth heated by solar radiation emits in turn an infrared radiation. (Source ScienceEtonnante)

  • Greenhouse gases (GHGs): A greenhouse gas (GHG or GhG) is a gas that absorbs and emits radiant energy within the thermal infrared range, causing the greenhouse effect. (Source: Wikipedia)

I

  • Internet of Things (IOT): describes physical objects (or groups of such objects) that are embedded with sensors, processing ability, software, and other technologies that connect and exchange data with other devices and systems over the Internet or other communications networks. (Source: Wikipedia)

  • IPCC: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

  • ISP: An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides services for accessing, using, or participating in the Internet. Source: (Wikipedia)

L

  • LCA: for life cycle assessment. It is a method for quantifying the environmental impacts of a product (which can be a good or a service). This method is formalized by the international standards ISO 14040:2006 and ISO 14044:2006.

  • Life cycle: The life cycle of a product takes into account all the activities involved in the manufacture, use, transportation and disposal of that product. (Source: actu-environnement.com)

  • Linear growth: this is called exponential growth when the increase per unit of time is a fixed number. It is an addition.

M

N

P

R

  • Rare-earth element: also called the rare-earth metals or (in context) rare-earth oxides, or the lanthanides (though yttrium and scandium are usually included as rare-earths) are a set of 17 nearly-indistinguishable lustrous silvery-white soft heavy metals. Rare earths are difficult to extract. (Source: Wikipedia)

  • Rebound effect: The rebound effect, or rebound phenomenon, is the emergence or re-emergence of symptoms that were either absent or controlled while taking a medication, but appear when that same medication is discontinued, or reduced in dosage. In the case of re-emergence, the severity of the symptoms is often worse than pretreatment levels. (Source: Wikipedia)

  • 5R Rules : the 5R describe strategies for sobriety at all levels of action available to users of digital devices. They correspond to : Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Repurpose, Recycle.

S

  • Supercomputer: is a computer with a high level of performance as compared to a general-purpose computer. The performance of a supercomputer is commonly measured in floating-point operations per second (FLOPS) instead of million instructions per second (MIPS). (Source: Wikipedia)

T

  • Trackers: are pieces of code designed to collect information about Internet users and in particular about their browsing (pages visited, searches carried out, etc.).

V

  • VOD or video-on-demand is a media distribution system that allows users to access videos without a traditional video playback device and the constraints of a typical static broadcasting schedule. (Source: Wikipedia)

W

  • Wearable technology: smart electronic devices (electronic device with micro-controllers) that are worn close to and/or on the surface of the skin, where they detect, analyze, and transmit information concerning e.g. body signals such as vital signs, and/or ambient data and which allow in some cases immediate biofeedback to the wearer. (Source: Wikipedia)