We tend to see technology as a generally positive (or at worst a benign) force in our lives. And for a variety of reasons, there seems to be a widely-held belief that technology holds the key to a resolution of our environmental crisis. I wonder what you make of this. For this week I’d like you to consider the following:
Will technology save us? Why, or why not? What does that even MEAN, in environmental terms?
If you want another challenge, take a crack at this one: What does our experience with stratospheric ozone depletion (which you’ll be reading about for next Tuesday's class) have to teach us about technology?
4 comments:
The role of technology and its ability to help our future can be taken both ways. On the one hand, it can be taken as merely a means of evading the real problem and putting off what needs to be addressed through the other channels of IPAT; or it can be viewed as something that will have a positive effect if used with the other variables.
My personal belief is the latter of these two. In today’s political discussions, technology receives a bad rap because it is seen as a scapegoat to the true problems; little initiation has been taken to recognize that there needs to be something else done besides just changing what form of energy we use or where it comes from.
If the mindset becomes we need to change our source of energy AS WELL AS how much we consume at any given time, suddenly there is a new perspective: one that addresses the fact that the environment is finite, thereby we are not using technology to put off our problems; it also proves that technology can in fact help address our concerns. Reaching this critical step where there is a change in the mindset of the population will certainly be a turning point in our struggle towards a more sustainable lifestyle.
In the case of the ozone depletion, we can see that technology was used as a commodity without knowledge of its harmful ramifications. I think it is also important to note the fact that because the developing countries only contributed to a small proportion of the CFC release, they somehow thought that they did have to contribute to the solving of the problem. While it was obviously up to the developed nations to take the lead, it was obvious that global cooperation was needed. THIS IS STILL THE PROBLEM TODAY!!
Back to technology…it is obvious that when used in excess and ignorantly, technology can have detrimental effects. Too much of a good thing does not continue to make it good, it generally makes it worse; it’s a basic example of the concept of economic utility applied to the environment, except it goes from bad to worse. I will restate my previous point that there needs to be a change in mindset as well as a change in usage if we are going to advance.
Hooray for stream of consciousness writing!!
I completely agree with what Austin has said about Technology's possible aid in our future in that it's a two way street.
Technology has the potential to solve problems like food shortages, and cure diseases affecting mainly our global south, as well as create energy mechanisms which we can run entire cities on efficiently. Human creativity is endless, so as long as technology is powered by imagination, we can technically do just about anything if we give it a try.
I tend to be a cynic, though, and see technology more often as of late, from its more negative perspective. I see gadgets, cell phones, personal music players as keeping us in our bubbles, away from each other and distracted from an outside world screaming for justice.
Technology can make or break this world.If we had listened to foresight and invested scientists and techno-geeks into alternative energy and overall efficiency a decade ago, it's possible that about a third of our problems would not exist today.
The problems lie in the mindset of the average american who finds it inconvenient to alter his or her ways based on a long road of conditioning. I can only ditto austin when he states that "Reaching this critical step where there is a change in the mindset of the population will certainly be a turning point in our struggle towards a more sustainable lifestyle". Bingo. Initiating the public to act at our own grassroots level to decrease our uses of inefficient technology and live more sustainable lifestyles must be met with the installments of clean energy and efficiency legislation from the bigwigs on the hill.
Ozone Depletion as a result of increases in technology use is our own damn fault. Why didn't we see the problems coming as we gluttonously consumed our way to the bottom of this very muddy slope? It never occurred to people that what we were doing was wrong simply because the American public is technically 'safest' and easier to control when kept uninformed.
We are living in a state of mind where the less you know about a topic, the more likely it will bite you in the ass later on, it's been this way a while and there's a pattern that has formed which needs to be discontinued- the American people have to stop with the apathy. Read the news. Get out and Vote. Learn about your candidates. Study up on the issues and actually have an opinion. Don't be afraid to stand up for what you believe in, even if you're standing alone. Take action for the benefit of others. Cry once in a while after analyzing the state of the planet. It's healthy.
We have a long long road ahead of us filled with a lot of hard work. But onward we must go, and technology can make the walk a little easier, but in the end we have to just work hard together; We have to work for a common good, work for a common love, work for a common future, as we're only here for a short while.
Technology…it’s a wonderful thing. You can’t deny that. I don’t even know where to being to describe what my life would be like if I didn’t have the essentials such as a television, cell phones, my iPod and the plethora of other items that make life worth sticking around for. Needless to say, it wouldn’t be pretty. However, just because technology has seemingly made our lives the envy of much of the world, that doesn’t mean that it is always bringing about good times and merriment. In the scope of the environmental situation, it seems as if that which has caused us to live such phenomenal lives has destroyed what we need to survive. To be honest, the answer to this whole question about the environment and the use of technology is not going to be this simple.
Look back at the past two hundred years and what is the one major fact that you’ll notice? Things are certainly a lot different today than they were when the United States was just beginning. Any real aspect of modern technology neither existed nor were ever thought imaginable at the time. Such simple tasks as growing and gathering food, attaining proper resources to sustain a society, and even things like travel were grueling ordeals at best. Since then, the miracle of the Industrial Revolution and the progress of mankind have done wonders for the overall quality of life. We have been able to take a small amount of a resource and use it to sustain a greater quantity of people for longer. What was once seen as tribulation was now so much simpler. It seemed as if humanity had performed a complete turnaround from what we used to call a life all at the hands of innovation and technology. You could even say, technology saved us from what can now be said to have been a less than stellar lifestyle. It is this same technology that led us down the path towards eventual harm.
Through all of the glitz and the glamour of the good things we saw with technology, detrimental effects such as the rapid use of resources, pollution, and the rise of a culture based on excessive consumption began to become quite commonplace. Forests, rainforests, rivers, lakes, streams, the atmosphere, and the existence of other species here on earth found themselves subjected to a continual degradation and rapid depletion. What had happened to all of the good that technology brought us? What, in reality, did advances like the assembly line really do to the ability of mankind to consume that much more? What has the automobile, which made travel essentially easier, done to the quality of the ozone and the amount of fossil fuels deposited under the Earth’s surface? We seemed to have ignored these downfalls of what we created and we cannot do this anymore in order for us to truly move forward.
Don’t get me wrong, when thinking of a solution to the environmental question the first and strong answer I support is technology. However, when looking at the future of the environment and the overall sustainability of mankind we need to proceed with the lessons we have learned from the past. A great example is found in experience the world faced with the stratospheric ozone depletion. Technology which made life easier was destroying an essential component to the planet’s survival. It was an important issue that needed to be addressed and quite rapidly. What happened during the negotiations and implementation of a strategic and beneficial was something that hasn’t seemed to happen since, much to the despair of the entire planet. A level of cooperation between the states seen as the North and the South, the willingness of the North to help the South progress forward in an environmentally friendly way, and the initiative taken towards finding a solution are all ways we can address the problems we face now and might face in the future. We as states in the North have a fairly easy path to take in terms of implementing new “green” technologies. We have the money and the power to enact these changes to benefit out resources…but what about the poorer states that comprise the South? They not only don’t have the money and possibilities to enact such new technologies, but why would they want to? Much of the argument stemming from the South bases itself on the fact that they feel it’s not fair that the US and other Northern Countries got to abuse and destroy the environment and benefit their economies and yet the South can’t do the same. They have to deal with the degradation of the environment and yet can’t do a thing to help themselves advance the way the North did? They say no and therefore feel they shouldn’t have to do squat. What does this mean? Just because the South is poor and doesn’t have a substantial amount of power in any sense, their lack of cooperation will be disastrous. Any effort the North puts forth towards fixing the environment will be thrown into reverse so long as major developing economies of the South decide to follow our old methods. Taking responsibility for our actions and being able to stand before the South and saying yes, we will help you, is the only way environmental degradation will be resolved. Offering incentives, money, technologies, and the ability to compromise with our fellow beings will help to ensure that any efforts put forth towards the answer of the environmental question can be substantial and long lasting.
Technology is going to be the great way towards which we pass on to our children a healthy and viable planet. It can be the answer so long as we don’t make the same mistakes that our ancestors did and use it in conjunction with other factors. To be successful we must not only focus on ensuring that whatever we create doesn’t further degrade what we’re trying to save. We must also focus on the fact that all members of the global community must take part. Looking at the I=PAT equation, population does have a critical benefit to aiding technology but not based on sheer size. Population is important in the sense that every single member must be willing to take on the initiative of compromise and desire to fix the problem once and for all. Any substantial deviation from cooperation by a nation as a whole will prove more damaging than some may think. Population size isn’t the problem but whether or not they all plan to cooperate is what we should be concerned with.
At the end of the day, we must leave the questions and the fears behind for one general vision: 200 years revolutionized the face of the earth and mankind. We cannot possibly know what we can create within the next 200 years and for all we know, the question of environmental degradation might be a question of the past. What we must remember is that to move forward requires a belief and desire to take the steps necessary to make sure that technology works in our favor and is truly the answer towards this great problem.
In my opinion, whether or not technology is currently considered to be more of a problem than a solution (or vice versa), it will eventually HAVE to be the factor that saves us. In spite of past technologies that have had detrimental environmental effects, and the resulting negative connotations associated with technology in relation to the environment, current paths of technological advancement hold significant promise of lessening the human impact on the environment. The rapidity and scale of the resulting positive effects on the environment from certain current and potential advances in technology and science redeem technology as a primary factor in saving the environment.
Take the internet for instance. Its a global network that, with every advance in the technology within itself, is replacing the necessity to consume resources such as paper, plastic, and even petroleum. The electronic exchange of information and products has completely eliminated the need for the resources that would have otherwise been required in order for the world to operate.
The next example I am going to put forward might not be very popular with any of you, but I have to in order to make my point that technology can be the ultimate savior for the global environment. Genetic engineering, for all of its perceived evils, will be necessary on a much larger scale than it is being employed today. The simple fact is that more species of plants and animals are going extinct faster than we can save them. Talk global environmental and endangered species protection reform all you want, but there will be ten billion people on this rock before you know it and protecting endangered species will be next to impossible in many parts of the world. The global ecosystem has been able to weather a few occasional extinctions of a few species at a time. But paleontological history shows us that, aside from the opposite possibility of some form of cataclysmic event causing planet-wide extinctions, that mass extinctions by themselves were enough to cause that degree of environmental disaster.
Therefore, if technology grants us the power to prevent the complete and utter destruction of the global ecosystem by resurrecting and cloning endangered or recently extinct species, I would say that it is certainly capable of saving us, and, once again, that it will have to.
All that being said, I'm not one of those mad scientist people who wants to clone everything and make every organic product genetically engineered to be superior than its natural equivalent. I don't care about that stuff. But if, for instance, several species of shark went extinct due to overfishing, the food chain in the oceans would implode, and the shock waves of such a disaster would eventually reach land. If "playing god" and creating artificial copies of the species required to put the ecosystem back into balance and keep the planet dying is what is necessary, I think it should be considered. It should also emphasize the fact that technology, no matter how scary or controversial, can be used for good, and therefore it should never be written off and possible doors to further technological advancement should never be closed.
The radical social greens can all go out into the woods, try to make or find some biological weapons to kill off all the humans they don't want around anymore (because thats the only way some of them are going to be able to succeed in their goal of reducing the population without completely destroying the planet in the process. fucking idiots,) but I'll stick with the people who decide to use their brains to devise practical and effective solutions to the problems at hand. Tech all the way.
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