No silver bullets

Technology is often seen as a silver bullet to the environmental crisis in many political and media circles. Even business circles seem to capitalize on the next “environmentally friendly” products. This kind of over-simplified outlook fails to dig deeper into the issues at hand. We overlook our overwhelmed recycling infrastructure and pass our old outdated technology oversees to ill equipped salvage yards where they have a detrimental impact on local societies and economies. We must create a new industry capable of recycling our outmoded goods here at home, where we can trust that our good can be remade into efficient products that do no harm to the environment. We must reevaluate our waste management system and critically evaluate how much of our technology is simply being thrown away as soon as possible once a replacement comes along. This reevaluation must also go hand-in-hand with a new commitment to rebuild our economy into a green one. We must build new infrastructure with the goal of creating a carbon neutral society in mind.

Beyond I=PAT's T

To start, I'd like to agree with Brittany's post over Chan's (sorry Chan...)

The historical trends of technology and their detriment on the environment loudly speak against the Cornucopian ideal of holding out for the next big spike in ecological engagement. We can't simply wait for an ecological industrial revolution. historically it needs to be addressed that increase in technology has steadily negatively impacted the environment due in part to the human element of attitude.

To counter the argument of technological restoration of the environment I'd like to pose a new equation (an subset of I=PAT) T(+)=(ΔA1x I2)/C.I.. Positive Technology equals a primary change in attitude then multiplied by implementation all divided by creative innovation. The historic trend of more and more can no longer be sustained, we can no longer contribute more timber, more coal, more oil to feed a growing technological monster. T(+) means in some regards a simpler kind of innovation. A simplification of sorts to counter the ever-decreasing fuel supply of Earth. ΔA speaks to the core of our class; dramatic and drastic change in attitude (see previous blog post.) A societal implementation following the change in attitude would be the wide-spreading factor. Finally the second part of the equation is divided by creative innovation, the human ingenuity and resilience factor ignored by I=PAT.

Technology alone cannot and will not save us.

This might just make the problem more complicated but I hope it addresses the things fundamentally flawed in I=PAT's vague capital T.

The issue of how technology can/will save us from the problems of climate change and environmental disaster has always been interesting to me. The reason for this is that my father (a smart man with normally semi-reasonable positions) has a hard-line technology will save us stance on the issue. So whenever the issue comes up, and it often comes up due to having a family friend who works on climate change issues for Nasa, he spends several minutes ranting about human ingenuity and how technology has always saved us before.

I don't take his hard-line view on the issue, however I think that we have passed the point where a non-technological answer can really solve the problem. Yes reducing consumption can help but I do not believe that we can realistically reduce consumption in a way that can seriously fix any of the issues we are currently facing.

Technology isn't always going to be something that can save us from ourselves, it simply can't be a good thing for us all the time. However when it comes to climate change it can't be anything but a good thing, because we have simply gotten to large for any other solution to be able to fix the problem except technology.

Fail Cornucopians. Fail.

In my opinion, the evolution of technology is a means to an end. We no longer wanted to sew by hand... bam!! Someone invents a sewing machine. We don't want to have to use animals to plow our land... bam!! A large piece of machinery can do it for us. The point of this is that the original intent of technology was to make things better not worse. I've seen numerous graph that show the usage of resources. As a society progresses that usage grows and grows and grows until one day it begins to fall. Those graphs aren't representing a new piece of technology that solves all of our problems. It's all about attitude.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. I do not think that technology is going to be our saving grace. Sure- someone may invent some kind of car that doesn't use gas and doesn't pollute like the ones we're currently using do. But it will take time for everyone to start to use those cars and, really, the damage has already been done. Unless someone invents a machine that sucks up all of the pollution in the air, puts all of the fish back in the sea and all of the oil back in ground and then just magically disappears... we may be out of luck. I'm definitely not with the Cornucopians on this one.

I might think that because inventing technology is not something that is on my radar. I'm all about politics. So for me this issue comes down to the people. There needs to be massive policy and attitude changes if we're going to control our consumption and try to limit the damage we're doing to the environment. For me the I=PAT equation makes sense. It's easy, it's simple and it inherently tells us where to reduce our impact. Technology is definitely part of this. But I don't think that a new technology is going to solve all of our problems. I would argue that we didn't know what effects the technologies we're currently using would have on the environment when they were invented. So how can we trust that something new won't make environmental degradation worse? Sorry, Cornucopians...

Praying to the God of Technology

Technology is a wonderful thing; it simplifies our daily lives, lets us communicate across borders and seas, and elongates our once short lives. So it is no wonder that so many people assume that technology is will save us from ourselves and this ecological mess we have created. People and governments have been putting all of their faith in technology, worshiping the idea that if we ask a computer to reduce carbon emissions, eventually it will magically get rid of the greenhouse gas threat. Cornucopians would be priests in this new technology based religion, they firmly believe that mankind and can use technology to save the Earth now and a million times over.

While, I am all for using technology for to help combat the effects of global warming, I am fully against relying purely on technology to get us out of this mess. Bill McKibben and several other writers we have read in class have warned against putting all our eggs in the basket of technology. They say we can use technology but they point out that if we use technology to solve our problems today, the same technology will simply cause new problems tomorrow.

As I have said in previous blog posts, we need to change our lifestyles and our consumer culture in order to really combat climate change. And depending on technology will only encourage our consumer culture and may actually prevent change in the long run, rather then save us.

The Nation that Greens Together...

The future of the green movement lies in the production and innovation of green technology and the creation of an organized industry around it. Branching from last weeks post of "too little" action on the American side of the movement, our minimized effort of bag taxes and reusable mugs isn't going to spark the great job stimulus that China is gearing up for.

While I don't think that climate change is best addressed in the round-a-bout manner of creating more jobs, it is a convincing argument for those politicians and legislators more focused on the potential short-term economic recession than the long-term environmental degradation. Our economy is never going to turn 180degrees into a green manufacturing state, but the greening of industry already in place could occur so much more easily, take the 1971 clean air act for example.

Viewing the environmental progression on a global scale is, in my opinion, a positive result of this race-like attitude. Noting the space-race (one of the only international races I'm aware of) a nationalized initiative and positively driven collective attitude toward the environment as an industry could lead to an improved folk-image of green American dreams. Maybe this competition will "whip us in shape," and soon we'll be faced with cheesy low-fi posters of biking to work or slogans of family unity through recycling. It's not a stretch from the math and science drive of the 60's and 70's; unfortunately the hardest sell is that reaching a cleaner Earth is as important and walking on the moon.

China on the way to a sustainable future?

Friedman’s article is surprising in that it highlights China’s attempt to modify its heavily industrial economy. The world’s most populous country wants a green revolution of its own. The apparent ease through which the Chinese leadership has started this movement may well reflect some of the more pressing climate issues they face. The more cynical among us may even interpret this as a simple means of saving face after years of severe environmental degradation in the country. After all, the Chinese government has pumped huge amounts of capital into the development of its heavy industrial sectors, often turning a blind eye to regulating any environmental concerns.

The technocrats within the Chinese bureaucracy have discovered that perhaps the nation’s road to a better future cannot come through continual haphazard production. Their wish now is to step away from more damaging and even dangerous means of production and pick us such methods as recycling. In the case of this article, it’s as simple as reclaiming plastic bottles, something America has been slow to do.

To me, China’s interest in cleaning up their economy seems genuine. Already they have had some labor protests as a result of poor working and living conditions. They fear such poor conditions will lead to unrest in the long run. It would seem as though they want more moral authority over the United States, now that they have actually taken action; American continues to twiddle its thumbs, at least on a federal level. Already, China is investing in wind power on a new level. According to NPR’s Foreign Dispatch, the Chinese are already putting up wind turbines in the Gobi Desert. When completed in 2020, the plants will provide 13.6 kilowatts of power, enough energy to power all of Chile.