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 We overlook our overwhelmed recycling infrastructure and pass our old outdated technology oversees to ill equipped salvage yards where they have a detrimental impact on local societies and economies.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.