Is technology and environmentalism compatible? Is technology neutral?

[auroraglacialis]

Thank you for your replies

Originally Posted by Fosus

While I do *like* technology, I don't believe in it. Some say technology will "save us", some even claim that it's the only way.. But I see it this way: as we (humanity) continue to pollute air, water and other things, we will soon need the technology to clean them for us.. [...]how could we possibly stay sane in such an environment? I could definitely not. I am a nature lover, yes, but I'd argue that _everyone_ else is too, at least deep inside.

I guess I agree with a lot of this. I have that dilemma - I also like technology. I used to do a lot with computers and electronics and I like to use this forum and I like beeing able to visit foreign countries and fly a hangglider. Its fun and all. There seem to be technological solutions that are promising to solve one or another thing. Organic solar cells, carbon fibre materials and so on. the potential to do a lot of good is there, I am however still in doubt about true sustainability (meaning that the development can go on indefinitely). There even is technology that minimizes or even eliminates pollution for the one or another thing.
Definitely sanity would suffer greatly from living in an increasingly artificial environment at least for me. I'd like to think, that all people are nature lovers deep inside, but I cannot be sure - many dont show it really and dig technology and artificial environment instead. Maybe I am part of a dying branch in evolution? I dont knoe. I feel a bit sad right now, so I hope my writings still make sense.

Originally Posted by Human No More

Well, the eventual (if still relatively distant) solution is matter replication, which eliminated shortages of anything but needs large amounts of energy and will only be practical even when it's possible once fusion is a viable source of energy

Come on that is a techno fantasy. I am not talking SciFi here but about what is realistic within the timeframe that humanity and the earth has and that is a few decades. Of course i could fantasize about a distant techno-utopia in which humans live in nice villages, can get everything on demand and keep 90% of the world as a nature reserve out of good will. But that is about as likely as any of the futuristic dreams people in the past envisioned for our time from flying intelligent cars to space hotels and underwater cities. Besides, this is all based on HOPE only - one can hope that technology will exist to provide this, but it is not even possible yet to say if matter replication, fusion or faster than light travel is possible at all... To base the future on hope only is a bad bet, I would say.

I know your view on all this, after all, all you need to do is look at your sig , but for me and I'm sure for the vast majority of people here, technology is not going to go

Well - my sig says something else. It says actually that I dont regard tools (which is my term for technologies that are not in themselves destructive) as a bad thing, but that people have "lost their way" in dealing with their inventiveness. And as long as that is so, I think increasing technology at least bears a strong potential for further destruction - and up to now that potential usually has always shown. And if the only other alternative is to go no-tech, than that would be my choice indeed - rather live a no-tech life than destruction of the earths ecology.
So my question here was, if technological development in the near future is compatible with a continued existence of the natural world?

To argue against the dissappearance of technology with the "millions would die" argument is to be expected. Also the argument that people would probably damage the ecology if collapse happens now. The question when it comes to these issues is, what will happen if things continue as they head now. My fear is, that if not something changes now, civilization is heading for a collapse anyways. Population will increase even more, pollution and global warming will increase and so damage to ecosystems will increase. And eventually either one of the technologies gets out of hand, or civilization reaches a point at which it starts to fail with the same consequences as you feared - just decades later with even less nature and landbase to turn to.
The only way out of it is to hope and wish for a technological solution that creates a new utopia by actually solving all the problems. Do you think that this is a likely course? What would have to change to make it likely?

You talk about mining, yet you don't realise that even in lower technology, mining would have to be performed in order to produce most objects

Well, I dont see it that way. For once, for a long time, there are plenty of resources available "in the open" for centuries or more - useable by recycling. I can just imagine how many metal knives and pots you could make from a scap car - If a low use of resources happens, the resources would last way longer. And of course there is also the alternative of a no-resource way of life - this is basically "stone age" and I ask myself, if this maybe the only truely sustainable way in the end. (In the correct sense, meaning that it is a way of life that can go on indefinitely while a way of life that requires resources always eventually runs out of these resources)

Technology enables new possibilities, it allows us to learn more about the world (I suppose you'd think that's negative though), allows us to experience new places and people, it connects us all. It has been massively abused in the past, but there is no reason to blame the tool instead of the person using it.

Well, this may surprise you but I love knowledge! I am a scientist after all, I studied the world, I studied resource geology and ecosystem science and physics, chemistry and biology. I experienced new place and that are nice experiences. I also see the impact that doing all this has on the very thing I wanted to see though and that deeply saddens me. By flying to Thailand in a Jet, I contribute to the destruction of the coral reefs I visited there. That cant work.
In my sig I say, that the relationship of people towards the tools and towards other people has to change fundamentally. This is what you also say basically by saying you "blame the person using the tool". So the question is, how - realistically! - such a change could come about. This culture, this civilization fostered a mindset that I reckon makes it virtually impossible for the people living within that system to truely break out of it. Every technology developed within this system will eventually be abused and with increasingly powerful technologies, the potential (and often actual) damage is also increasing. Nanotechnology has the potential to turn the planets surface into a wasteland, biotechnology can create organisms that wipe out whole species, including humans. And even now, people think about what will happen if biotech would be used to that ends (by intention or accident) and they feel helpless.
So unless all the people undergo a worldwide "shift of consciousness" as some 2012-believers say will happen by then, I dont see that this society will undergo such a change.
So a question: Do you think, this culture will undergo a voluntary transformation to a sustainable way of life and a responsible use of technology?
Please - this is not a rhethoric question - do you think such a voluntary change is likely?

Originally Posted by ZenitYerkes

Technology for covering the needs of every single human being, and freeing them from the most hard work is the only fair use I can picture. For there is enough for all of us, but our economies are based on scarcity and thus misusing the resources in desires for ones, and making others starve.

Well then it is a case of economy? Would a change in economy solve the problem? Would in the ideal case the creation of a truely democratic egalitarian society enable technology to be used only in a positive way, helping people and the ecology all the way?
Or would even then there be people who misuse technology, would population still increase and suffocate the planet, would resource consumption still require damaging the natural world?

I think they are compatible -but in measure. We can't live without machines, they make surviving easier -but neither expect from them to make all the work for us

What is that measure - at what point do you think it starts to become unacceptabe? Where do you draw the line? What size of mining operation or how many ppm CO2 in the atmosphere or how many acres of land turned into farmland are within that measure? At what point would you say, the whole thing becomes unsustainable?

Greetings and I look forward to your reply. Please dont consider all of the questions as rhetorical, I am really hoping you can think of an answer to them.

Aurora