Is the New Commons Killing the Old Commons?

An interesting meditation on the way in which the application of the commons metaphor to information - something I've certainly been doing in these posts - commits the sin of ignoring the way in which computers, the creators of that metaphorical commons, are destroying the concrete commons of the environment through the toxic materials they habitually contain, and which are dumped when they reach the end of their life.

It therefore suggests:

Perhaps the time has come to revisit the metaphor of an 'environmentalism for the net' to talk not only about multiple forms of resistance to an ever expanding intellectual property regime, but quite literally of the ecopolitical implications of the very infrastructures that facilitate and sustain the net.cultural dynamic of collaborative creation. Such an environmentalism, articulated conceptually and organisationally in the challenging context of electronics manufacturing's 'global flagship networks', could significantly broaden existing efforts by labour unions and NGOs to develop a broader agenda of economic and environmental justice.

Food for thought. (Via OnTheCommons.)