I owe this 60-Second Earth gig to Steve Jobs. Without the iPod there's no ___1___.. But our collective lust for iPod-like gadgets has some outsized impacts on the planet.

Give Jobs credit. When pushed by environmentalists, he unveiled less toxic products, eliminating nasties like arsenic and mercury. But, ultimately, each of these devices relies on substances such as coltan from warlord-ravaged Congo or illegally mined rare __ 2___. from China.

Then there's all the energy used to let you listen to me. The vast server farms that allow digital storage of music, photos and everything else are the fastest growing users of electricity, mostly made from burning coal.

Finally, there's the planned ___3___.. An original iPod would be laughably inadequate today. And Apple is better than most at whipping up consumer ___4___. with its product launches. That means waste, and old gadgets consigned to places like Nigeria where children are poisoned reclaiming some of the valuable elements inside.

Fortunately, Apple has one of the better recycling programs. Hopefully Jobs’s most important ___5___. will be that the products he created won't have too big of an impact at the end of their lives on either people or the planet.
【视听版科学小组荣誉出品】
podcast earths frenzy obsolescence legacy
我应该为史蒂夫•乔布斯做一期节目，没有ipod就没有播客，我们都渴望拥有像ipod那样的小玩意儿，但是这种渴望给地球带来的影响，超乎想象。 乔布斯的努力是值得肯定的，环保人士施压之后，乔布斯发布的产品有毒物质变少，去掉了那些“肮脏”的成分，比如砷和水银，可是剩下的物质仍然“见不得光”，例如，苹果曾经从军阀蹂躏下的刚果（金）进口钶钽铁矿，从中国非法开采窝点进口稀土矿。 另外，有一种能量让大家有机会收听我的节目，那就是——“服务器农场”。“宽广”的 “服务器农场”（将海量的服务器集成到一起，形成类似大规模农场一样的规模，里面有无穷无尽的数据——译者注）是增长速度最快的电力用户，用来储存数码音乐、照片等等，但大多数都是由燃煤制成。 最后一个我要说的就是计划报废。可笑的是，每一代ipod总有各自的缺陷，这使得苹果非常善于利用新产品掀起一股购买狂潮，先前的产品就成了明日黄花，这些报废品被运往尼日利亚这样的地方，当地的孩子因回收其中一些重要元件而中毒。 最后一个我要说的就是计划报废。可笑的是，每一代ipod总有各自的缺陷，这使得苹果非常善于利用新产品掀起一股购买狂潮，先前的产品就成了明日黄花，这些报废品被运往尼日利亚这样的地方，当地的孩子因回收其中一些重要元件而中毒。