Q1. Technological Change Vs Environmental Change

With the rapidly developing Technologies… Are we really progressing as a society or progressing towards the stone age?

• When Petrol was first used in cars, no one had imagined that we’d promote Global Warming?
• When Coal was first used in to generate electricity, no one had imagined that it would create massive problems like Global Warming?
• Now Scientists are using Tidal Waves and Sea currents to generate electricity. Who knows if it will disrupt some other natural balance and accelerate the process of destruction?

I am NOT against technological developments and changes brought by them. However, so far we have neglected impact of technology on environment.

Also, the first world lifestyle; although very comfortable and convenient, focuses on heavy consumption of resources.

We just can’t stop consuming resources. What is the end? For. e.g with just 300 mn people, USA is the largest contributor to the environmental pollution and GHG. What if 1.2 bn of India start consuming at the same rate as Americans?

Are we really developing a sustainable social lifestyle or are we progressing towards the stone age again?

Is it really sustainable? How can we ensure that we develop a sustainable lifestyle?

I asked the above question on LinkedIn and obtained some very interesting answers. The same are provided below:

Answers:

By Les DeGroff:

My opinion, is firstly that the notions of social progress are a set of illusions.

Second, being an organism, incarnate, means that you can not stop consuming resources…. and a great majority of resources including fossil fuels and plants do not care if you consume them, although even the plants have evolved to try and prevent that. The end for individuals is death, for species and cultures it is extinction. Adaption to change is also the nature of other life forms.

In the large, long view, sustainable is also a myth, things change. It is likely that H. Sapiens will not even last half a million years, unclear if we will create descendant species or mind children or not.

Considering many fictional speculations of how mankind could fall back, things will most likely be much different during and after a collapse and die back… one major factor is that our debris, (as of today) leave lots of materials for an iron age.

As for Tracey, low tech is not really very pleasant, a million technologies have been invented to ease the pains of that kind of existence.

By Cher Wada:

This is definitely a question that will spur a debate in everyone…

Having said that; unfortunately, one can’t progress without making some mistakes along the way- it’s simply a part of the learning curve.

However, it does seem that we should do a bit more research on cause and effect before we go and jump head first into the latest planet altering idea.

By Jan Simpson:

Good question – Space is the beginning to the end

Life always goes full circle – -

By Rico Paris:

HI Pankaj

One step forward and two steps backwards I would say. As fast as we invent something we think will make life better, in time we see the negative side to it, however also in time we combat that – and the process continues. We can’t stop consuming resouces you say, I agree so lets look at renewable ones, and sustainable ones, ones that work in harmony with the environment etc, surely thats the logical choice. I know its not that simple but it has to start from making the decision to at least open our eyes to the alternative possibilities, rather than continue on a path which will change nothing.

By Tracey Tarrant:

I think not only are we destroying our planet we are creating lazy societies. No longer do our children go outside and play all day stopping only for dinner. Instead of using their imaginations, they have Playstations, Xboxes, the internet, tv and cell phones. In the US especially, we are turning into a society of sludge. We eat nothing but processed foods laden with unhealthy fillers. We sit all day and barely get any exercise.

Where are we headed? With the dawning of this new age of awareness in spirituality, we are in a way heading back to the stone age. I believe not in our generation and maybe not even in our children’s generation, there will come a day where we rid ourselves of most technology and rebuild our planet. I can see politics and religion taking a back seat to our way of life and I see a more peaceful world where we all live for now and not tomorrow.

Am I dreaming? Maybe…but maybe not.

By Subhas C Biswas:

I feel we have tolerated wastage, misdirected development for a long time.

For every one bad developments in science, technology and in management, there are ten other progressive sustainable developments happening.

Buildings are being made sustainable, infrastructure projects are trying to balance the nature, mining has started renewal programme, such examples can be seen everywhere.

We had not seen these happening some 30-50 years ago.

Industries are now complying with more regulations, may be several major accidents has triggered this awareness or regulations.

People are not lazy, see any park or tourist place, you will find they are full with active, agile people, mostly young. It is just that we have not provided enough places for people to move around, and children are not to be blamed for remaining at home.

In a developing country like India, I could see lot of pride in people while wasting resources, including time. As if they can afford and they are entitled to waste. Little they realize the energy and resources used in bringing the fuel or food to their use.

By Terri L Maurer:

So long as there are human beings…and animals…here on earth, something will be consumed. Given enough time, most anything will reach it’s end. Odds are that had cavemen continued to kill dinosaurs for dinner, except for the meteor that killed them all off (at least that’s the theory), they’d have become extinct sooner or later.

It does seem that some of our technology tends to go a step or two further than necessary. With all the bells and whistles on cell phones and Blackberry-type units, I’ve seen people coming out with the real down and dirty basic cell phone with numbers large enough to read and buttons large enough to easily push…a move backwards, yes, but certainly to meet a need. Today on the radio, I heard a news brief about people going out to buy push lawn mowers because of high gasoline prices. The news has been covered with the need for Americans to get healthier through lifestyle changes….walking instead of driving, children being sent out to play with friends, cooking at home instead of eating out. All of these are ‘roll backs’ to what was going on when I was a kid.

So long as there are humans on earth, they will consume something. When it gets dangerously close to extinction, someone will either change what they are consuming or find a way to preserve what remains.

By David G:

Just as the industrial revolution in England was getting underway, Thomas Malthus issued a dire prediction. That as population was growing geometrically and food production was increasing arithmetically the planet (he meant the advanced economies of the time) would run out of food.

With hindsight we can see how wrong Malthus was. Yet at the time his prognostications were reasonable in many ways. Where Malthus went wrong was failing to appreciate how technology and better managment procedures would increase food production. Selective breeding, swamp/marsh drainage, use of fertilisers and so on.

The prodigious consumption of oil in WW2 led many to believe that the world would run out of oil within 25 years. Apocalyptic speculation is perhaps the second oldest profession.

Active and fevered imaginings as inspired by Sci Fi writers generally suggest a future consisting of an aristocratic elite who control all powerful and omnipresent technology while the masses labour and subsist in some fenced off wasteland devoid of all resources. Track down the movie “Zardoz” starring Sean Connery in the lead role as an interesting take on such a theory.

A dangerous potentiality in the world today is where democracy is in a process of decline and with it the rule of law and most importantly, due legal process. As yet unclear is whether or not the elites of each nation will ultimately coalesce into a borderless super elite at which time the masses will become an irrelevance and an inconvenience. Should this occur then the return to feudalism and serfdom will probably be inevitable and then an approximation of the stone age scenario you refer to is quite possible.

The twin problems facing the planet are that there are only enough (above subsistence) jobs for one third of the worlds working age population. There are only enough resources for 28% of the worlds population to live (current) first world lifestyles.

The decision is who will live first world lifestyles or will the world equally share out human misery.

By Wallace Jackson:

Digital Progress will help to assuage these problems through connectivity and collaborative solutions.

Links:

• http://www.mindtaffy.com
• http://www.acrobat-3D.com
• http://www.WOWsignage.com

By Barbara Saunders:

I think every advance in society solves one problem and creates another. The factory replaced hardscrabble life on the farm. Sedentary desk jobs that kill us slowly replaced physical jobs that injured and killed us suddenly. Our memories last only one or two generations, if that. So, no, our current lifestyle isn’t sustainable but no way of life ever has been.

What do you think?