Technology and environment
A paradox of technology is that it can be both a cause for environmental damage and again our best hope in repairing such damage today and avoiding it in the future. Actually, the present environmental problems call for more environmentally benign technology. In the context, many believe that the solution of today's social and environmental problems is possible through more and better technology -- not from less technology. However, it requires achieving a radical change there like a shift away from hydrocarbon-based energy technologies to greener options like renewable energy source, or innovative technology to treat pollutant or adaptation technology to adjust to the climate change impacts. Economic theory related to environment like “Environmental Kuznets Curves (EKC)” says that there is a transition between development of attitude from profit motivated industrialization to environment friendly societal system. For the case of Technology, I believe that development of technology also undergoes some stages in almost analogous manner to EKC. Before going to this discussion let us define what “Technology” means. While unveiling the mystery of nature is the main objective of a Scientist; Engineer or Technologist on the other hand always aimed at innovation that has some usefulness to the society or solve some specific problems. Why an Apple falls downward -- to unveil that mystery of nature, Newton invented those laws of motion, and one of which says that “every action has its equal and opposite reaction”. Engineer took the theory and invented jet engine, which was just a revolution in the field of communication. Consider a world 500 years back, while European people did not know about India and Columbus was searching for it; compare it with now when you can travel from India to Europe within 5-6 hours. Irony is that the same technology has some limitations and unfortunately air travel causes emission of maximum amount of Green House Gas (GHG) per mileage / person compared to any other modes of transport. However, does it mean we should stop using the airplanes or whether its drawbacks overweigh the benefits? Environmentalists now are also divided on questions like this. A small group of them tries to blame flatly all those technological inventions as something to be the root cause for present environmental degradation. However, the larger mass of the community refutes such unconscious blame as saying that life has been improved thoroughly the history through technological advancement, and it was not better ever before than now. Table 1 shows the life expectancy of a few countries in 1910 and 1998, which clearly shows that life expectancy has increased significantly over the last century, and it was mostly contributed by technological advancement. The same is the case for other countries including Bangladesh, and on an average every year the global life expectancy is increasing amid all those degradation. So, there should not be any reason to assume that technology has threatened life, rather flourished it. Apart from this, technology has left profound positive impacts on all quarters of life including socio- economy, politics and culture, which cannot be denied by any means. The second group of environmentalists rather likes to see the present global environmental issues as another problem which needs to be solved in a pragmatic manner. Simply because of environmental degradation one cannot stop using technologies and that will be something to cut your head for headache and in fact, it will not bring any good as it is evident from Table 1 that life was not pleasant at all around 100 years back, even amid a pristine environment. According to them the environmentalists from the first group are unrealistic, who instead of solving problems trying to create only hue and cry to draw attention, and such a nagging notion by them is mostly resulted due to their ignorance about the process of scientific invention or sometimes due to frustration. The second group rather blames politicians, economists and business communities for imprudent and destructive use of technology either for power or profit. Nuclear energy can be used for the wellbeing of the society through production of power, while on the contrary it can be used for destructive purposes like Atom Bomb. Likewise, most of the industrial waste can be treated through Effluent Treatment Plant (ETP), but greedy businessmen avoid it to optimise their profit. And, what about that famous economic theory which says “more consumption means more production and thus a vibrant economy” -- which ultimately resulted in quick depletion of all those natural resources, especially those non-renewable ones? The fact is that Science and Technology are now passing a transition period. As it is mentioned that technology always aimed at solving day to day problems -- scientists and technologists in last century actually concentrated solely on solving those human needs like communication barriers, improvement of human health, and livelihood, etc. No doubt they were quite aware of the limitations of those technologies and their adverse impacts -- for example, the probable outcome of greenhouse effect had been explained probably around 100 years back by scientists, long before present concern on the issue. Similarly, if you open a civil engineering book written around 60 years back, you can see that it clearly mentioned about the limitations and adverse impacts of a dam or barrage. In many cases, in course of time many of the technologies had been improved significantly toward environment friendliness like better construction practices, replace of harmful products like DDT, Asbestos or finding alternative to CFC, etc. Revolutionary advancement in technology is again expected on use of renewable energy in coming decades. Carbon sequestration technologies, on the other hand, nowadays are trying to utilise global GHGs even for different beneficial purposes. Actually, in coming days the second stage of technological advancement is expected which will mostly address all those limitations and adverse impacts of modern technologies and mend them or refine in an environmentally congenial manner. However, new invention alone may not be enough to flourish environment friendly technologies, and in many cases it needs policy intervention to support technologist, at least until the period while an environment friendly technology is more expensive than traditional ones. So, the environmental awareness of our policy makers is very important here as well, also for the business communities. In this connection, I would like to appreciate the foresight and prudent initiative of North South University authority to educate its Business School students with at least the fundamental concepts of environmental science and management. No doubt it will result in far reaching impact in near future toward sustainable development of the country. A global consensus among the business communities is again needed so that all over the world an environment friendly product can have easy access to the market and be competitive to traditional ones. Some other issues like the patent right of an environmental friendly product and mechanism of such technology transfer, need to be resolved as well. A paradigm shift in economic and business theories is here a dire necessity. Technology is probably the most dominating factor with enormous influence on modern life. Those who could master in it always ruled the world. However, time has come to ensure its conscious and prudent use. As its main objective is to serve humanity through solving problems, in fact, from now onward a new era of technology has emerged which needs to concentrate on another burning problem of modern civilization -- the longevity of mother earth. To build a sustainable world, technologists thus require support from all quarters of the society.
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