Human Rights advocates and Sustainability advocates are sometimes separated because they work in different silos; the human rights field tends to be more oriented on legal and social policy issues, and sustainability is often more geared towards some aspect of physical science or engineering.
Discussion Question
How could the Internet be used to more effectively link human rights with sustainability — what would these linkages need to look like?
What the internet has provided to the world in terms of mass communication is by far the most useful thing to address issues like this. More specifically, as the internet as established itself as a cornerstone of society, we have seen an increase in global communication like no other instance in history. We are able to see content from people across the world like its nothing.
With that being said, I think one of the most useful tools that we have to effectively bridge the gap between these issues is social media and the increase in global mindedness that has come from it. Social Media platforms have connected people in ways we could have never imagined, but more importantly, what determines whose voice is heard is not(entirely) a factor of wealth or power. There are many instances where lesser known communities and people are able to bring attention to an issue that would have otherwise been ignored. Social media provides a platform for these people to talk directly to the audience, instead of having to do it through some third party which determines what is in their best interest to report on.
The other way these digital platforms can strengthen the connections/capabilities of human rights/sustainability is through the more result oriented side of the internet. With the onset of the communication age, scientists, human rights advocates, and lawmakers can all work together from a great distance. Without the tools of the internet, it would strain the ability for these different professions to work together efficiently. There seems to be a direct correlation between human collaboration and results, and so any platform in which we can encourage collaboration and peer work should be utilized to its fullest extent.
The third way the internet has helped to link these fields is by creating a medium in which a large amount data can be gathered. In the age of Machine Learning Models and Information Technology, big data is key to solving a lot of the problems sustainability requires. AI Classification models have proved vital in detecting illegal environmental crimes, where large amounts of visual data from satellites and other sources are use to train models to detect pollution/logging/etc. In addition, data scientists can use big data to find discrepancies and catch on to harmful trends before its too late.