In a world full of colour it’s sometimes amazing to meet people who have an incredibly black-and-white view of the world. Over the last few weeks I’ve had the opportunity to speak with some of the most obtuse environmentalists, via email, who attended the recent summit in Thailand about their solutions to the emissions problem that we, as an ‘intelligent species’, are facing.
Several of the participating nations sent highly qualified representatives with more education than you can shake a stick at, but I don’t want to discuss their environmentally sensible and economically viable solutions. Instead, I want to share two of the most infuriating positions I encountered, with two flavours of one.
The Elimination of All Non-Biologically Fuelled Technology
This proposed solution was originally given a deceptively catchy politically scientific name designed to attract readers and broad support from the international community but, after the meet was all said and done, the concept was all but ignored for its stupidity.
The sponsoring nation, who shall remain nameless for the time being, was essentially proposing that every nation essentially give up on almost every technological advancement created since the advent of the horse and buggy.
For any nation to expect a species that has developed the tools necessary to explore the universe to suddenly walk away from centuries of advances in science, medicine, metallurgy and just about everything else that separates humans from squirrels is not just unrealistic, it’s absurd. If people truly want to live an Amish life, they’re more than welcome to make their way to the technologically stagnant communities and assimilate themselves into the culture. Pushing it on the world would be no different than trying to push a religion onto an unwilling population. The riots and outright disobedience for any legislation forcing people to give up the comforts they’ve become accustomed to would be far more than most police and military forces could realistically handle.
And there’s the other problem: which nation would reduce itself to infantry armed with muskets and cavalry armed with swords first? What punishment would be inflicted onto a nation that refuses to give up their automatic weapons, ballistic missiles, stealth technologies and spy satellites?
How about the incredibly wealthy? Will they shut down their multi-billion dollar, multi-national mega corporations and start up new, less profitable, ventures with their massive assets? Some might, but they wouldn’t go down without a fight.
Now, in defense of the presenting nation, they’ve lived off whatever technological scraps France left behind after giving up on their colonial ambitions in the 1970’s. Air conditioning is still something owned by the wealthiest 0.3% of people there, but very few people go hungry at night. However, to think that an entire planet would give up the very things that cause so many of our problems shows just how much some have to learn about the world.
The next solution is one that most of the planet could almost agree on, and it has the potential to fundamentally transform our terraforming capabilities to such an extent that entire planets could be “prepared” for our arrival years or decades in advance.
Solving Our Problems With Technology
Technology is a wonderful thing. Over the last few thousand years it has helped us make difficult tasks a thing of the past. Hunting went from a dangerous endeavor requiring dozens of men with enough combined strength and cunning to catch a wild animal, to something any child could do with a rifle and steady aim. Farming was once a labour intensive activity, requiring thousands of hours of labour to something that, while still difficult, can be accomplished by a single family and the proper machinery. Travel has gone from being something done only by the most intrepid, to something enjoyed by many as leisure.
So rather than make our lives more difficult by taking away the conveniences of our time, why not find technological solutions that will not only keep a capitalist system afloat, but stands to make our future colonization efforts far more automated?
Several of the industrialized nations are pushing to secure funds to promote technological solutions to our emissions problems. From orbital solar platforms to massive floating atmospheric scrubbers to geosequestration; no concept is being turned away. The advantages to such ideas are numerous but, at the end of the day, the main drivers for such measures are two groups of people: the incredibly wealthy and the incredibly lazy.
The incredibly wealthy earned much of their money by selling us things promoted to make our lives easier. Lazy people are lazy because they’ve become accustomed to those things that make our lives easier and don’t want to give them up. Gasoline is a prime example of this.
Looking again at our history, we’re not likely to change our habits or expectations any time soon. So this is a great reason for corporations and scientists to explore all possible technological solutions to the mess we’ve made here on Earth. However, given the enormous costs involved with researching and developing the new or advanced technologies required, some non-industrialized or so-called “third world” nations are demanding that the nations who made the mess also clean the mess, then make the cleaner technologies cheap and freely available to everyone in their nation.
Which brings us to the third extreme measure ….
Having Industrialized Nations Clean the Planet, While Everyone Else Plays Catch-Up
The farcical Group of 77 have, in no uncertain terms, expressed their objections to allowing any carbon emission caps to be placed on their nations. Some feel that since regions such as Europe and North America have had over 200 years of freedom to rape the Earth of resources on an industrial scale while blackening the skies with billions of tons of crap, they should have the same luxury while European and North American researchers devise cleaner industry technologies. Once these new devices and techniques are created, the G77 nations expect to reap the benefits of cutting edge 21st century power generators and personal devices at a fraction of their actual market value.
Somehow, I don’t see companies like Toyota making state-of-the-art vehicles available for €500 just because some countries do not have the need or desire to constantly improve their tools, techniques, or standard of living like many Western nations. But rather than get bogged down with the nuances between the cultural, regional, and political reasons for the disconnect between the wealthy and poorer nations, let’s stick with this unrealistic expectation.
Like everything else on the planet, technological advancement requires stability, education and resources. Almost every nation on Earth has resources of one type or another, it’s just the other two requirements that are often lacking in some of the less popular countries. Rather than bitch and moan about how Western greed and short-sightedness has caused some ecologically devastating consequences while, at the same time, screaming for the very same privilege of using cheap and dirty energy production, poor waste management practices, and horribly eco-unfriendly gas guzzling SUV’s, why not provide economic or social benefits for citizens that devise clever and easily maintained technologies?
Lord knows that most of the G77 nations have been taken advantage of for hundreds or thousands of years, but the sooner they stand on their own two feet and educate themselves, the better it will be for the environment and the global community at large. Perhaps then these nations will be in a better position to demand proper reparations for whatever atrocities they were forced to endure in the past.
The Only Logical Way Forward
We have proven time and again that the human race is both dynamic and quickly adaptable. We’ve overcome diseases, incredible geographical distances, insanely complex scientific problems and just about every major “Why?” question we’ve had in the last 5,000 years. There’s still a billion questions we need answers for but, at the end of the day, the quest for answers will keep us going until the end of time. To that end, one of the only ways we can solve our current emissions problems will be a combination of these opposing views.
Yes, it’s important for the already industrialized nations to curb their carbon emissions, just as it’s important for developing nations to choose ecologically sensible solutions for their development problems. However, implementing extreme measures such as technological abandonment or the careless use of less-efficient but cheaper solutions will do nothing for the long-term viability of the planet.
These measures were likely drawn up as a means of generating discussion and, if that was their intention, mission accomplished. My concern, though, is with the people who feel our looming global catastrophe can only be solved with black-and-white solutions.
What’s your take on these measures?
Young people and tech-savvy buyers across Japan are breathing a sigh of relief as yet another proposed Digital Copyright Tax fails to make the grade. Consumers cheered and celebrated by running to the nearest electronics store to grab the latest Sony digital device or Apple iPod, proclaiming loudly that any attempt to tax them on digital media would be doomed to fail as governments cannot regulate what they neither control or understand.
Because of the freezing, I’ve actually been looking at the possibility of getting my hands on a wireless keyboard. “But if your PDA is freezing at 3,000 words and you can type at 170 words per minute, doesn’t that mean that you’ll need to reset your iPaq every 20 minutes?”
The Phoenix lander completed it’s 711-million kilometer journey to the Martian north pole this past weekend with a successful soft-landing and some beautifully clear pictures. Over the next 90 days, this stationary laboratory will continue our quest to find evidence for life on our closest semi-habitable planet. With this landing, JPL’s tradition of handing out peanuts before landing has continued to bring luck. As it stands, less than half of all spacecraft sent to the Red Planet arrive intact. That said, the craft that do make the journey in one piece often return far more data and operate far longer than the original mission called for. It’s a testament to the intelligence, creativity and tenacity of the human spirit to see these machines boldly go where no one has gone before, and I look forward to seeing what feats of technological prowess mankind will enjoy in the future.