Technology: Assessing the Key Relationships

With the growing production of technological innovations in the 21st century, we cannot avoid the environmental ramifications involved. On the subject of Ozone depletion, technology has the biggest hand in this process. The act of driving, burning fossil fuels in power plants and factories, emits harmful gases into the atmosphere such as CFCs, CO2, methane, and others. These gases are eating away at the Ozone, which rests in the stratosphere and acts as a layer of protection from the sun's rays overheating the planet. With technological innovations only increasing and more products entering the planet, the threat on the Earth is palpable and extreme.

However, I do believe that we can find a great deal of hope for the environment in the field of technology. Environmental engineers are currently researching ways to develop fuel-efficient cars through the use of biomass,ethanol, hydrogen, and other alternative sources. Skilled, green-minded architects and designers have presented a number of production changes that could decrease the strain that the technologies we use put on the environment. They have also published ideas that can save deteriorating biomes in certain regions. Since we have the knowledge and technology to develop such innovations, the government must pump MORE money into these programs. I believe technology can use as a positive mode for environmental conservation--if we use it properly and moderate it. The key issue here is the relationship among these three key ingredients: people, policy, and technology. This relationship gets its fuel from that one little thing that makes this world work: money! This diagram illustrates the argument I am trying to make, about how actions to help slow climate change and reduce our "ecological footprint," the lack of funding and social drivers for it stem back to economics. Since we lack the economic contribution to start projects like the "Rising Currents," (presented at the MOMA last spring, see: http://www.moma.org/explore/inside_out/2010/09/21/rising-currents-transformation-through-creative-collaboration#description) innovative ideas such as these will never grab the spotlight in the technological realm. Advertising has made most Americans fail to see the the side of technology different from the side that spits out iPhones, BluRay players, and gas-guzzling Jeeps at an alarming rate. We constantly hear of new inventions or "more" technologically-advanced enhancements to our older inventions that we can't really learn about how can technology can be used alternatively and actually save the environment. Unless of course, our government funds it and make sit more present in the lives of consumers.


So, yes, I do think that technology has been the primary factor in environmental degradation and climate change, but it is not pure evil. We can change technology from a negative ingredient to a positive one, it just takes funding and political drive.