Week Five Questions: Technology

The debate of whether or not technology will save us from environmental catastrophe is a difficult one. Technology saving us means inventing ways of reducing our impact on the planet and fixing the problems we have all ready created. There is no doubt in my mind that technology could save us as it is impossible to predict what will be invented in the future. For example, if some day a machine is created that could take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere at massive levels and replace it in the ground (perhaps creating oil in the process) then one large aspect of the environmental crisis will no longer exist. The question is the feasibility of this and similar inventions. In my opinion, if we can create an atomic bomb, than all we need is a very advanced team of highly trained scientists, a ton of government funding, and a very, very pressing timeline (a time where within a matter of years extreme environmental decline will be visible to everyone) and a machine such as the one mentioned above could be created.

However, even if such a machine is invented, it may do more harm than good. As this machine does not exist yet, we can not know of any possible negative side effects, but there does not yet seem to be any perfect technology. In this example, perhaps a calculation was wrong and the machine takes out too much carbon dioxide and we all freeze instead of burn. Or perhaps the carbon dioxide is not properly replaced in the ground and poisons all the fish and water mammals. These are all hypothetical of course but show possible negative effects and why technology might not be our answer.

One thing is certain, however, and that is that humans are growing at an exponential rate on a finite planet. No matter how good technology gets, it cannot change this. The earth can only produce so much food, clean water, and living space for the human population. Without population control, we could solve every other environmental crisis and still destroy the planet. Therefore, I believe technology can save us from certain problems but not all. Even if the carbon dioxide extractor is never invented, ways of reducing emissions will be refined and utilized to limit our carbon dioxide pollution. Unfortunately, technology can not save us from too many people (unless another, uninhabited earth is discovered with a high powered telescope and a giant space ship invented to take people there). This, I feel, is even less feasible than the carbon dioxide extractor and only a temporary answer to the problem. In order to stop environmental destruction, the human population must be sustained at a much lower number than what exist today.