Technological Environmentalism
One of the things I really dislike about much of the green movement is its romanticism and aversion of technology.
On Wednesday, Femme de Resistance over at Forceful and Moderate posted on this subject with particular reference to James Lovelock.
Today I’ve come across a New York Times article (registration required – or Bug Me Not for a username and password) about Stewart Brand, one of the founding lights of environmentalism and his dislike of the romanticism which dominates much of the environmental movement.
Like Lovelock he espouses such heresies as advocating nuclear power and GM crops. This advocacy is the result of a long term involvement with technology and the environment. He organised the first hacker’s conference and has been involved in the technological counter culture for a long time. He sees technology not as a threat, but as a great tool which can be used to improve human lives and the environment.
One of his revelatory moments was the failure of the predictions of doom in the 1970s. He was convinced, like many others, that population growth would mean mass shortages of essentials, that commodity prices would soar and we’d see mass starvation across the world. None of this happened, and its a salient lesson for many of today’s doom mongers, humans are amazingly adaptable and we will come up with solutions to problems, often without realising it.
This is an incredibly positive view, we are not perfect, but we have amazing skills which we can use to solve all problems, not simply environmental ones. Technological advance, not romanticism, will be the solution to environmental problems.
Its a message we as LibDems should listen to. If we are serious about the environment we should be looking towards innovation and technology for solutions.
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March 2nd, 2007 at 2:01 pm
I sort of agree. I’ve certainly been very frustrated with the green lobby that has opposed things like carbon sequestration (which is looking increasingly practicable) and energy from waste, which would be valuable tools against climate change. I’m also not opposed to genetic engineering per se: for me the issue is about intellectual property rights and companies promoting technological solutions at the expense of cheaper and more workable alternatives than it is about ’superweeds’ and suchlike.
However, I think he’s very wrong about nuclear power, mainly because of the geopolitical issues. It isn’t simply a question of the UK going nuclear, it is about a massive worldwide uptake in the use of nuclear fuels. This has huge global security implications: having 10 times as much uranium passing around the world is an open invitation for nihilist groups such as Al Qaeda.
There is also the matter of where do we get this uranium from. You already read of horror stories about the polluting effects of uranium mining in developing countries and Australia isn’t going to be able to meet global demand. A global spike in uranium costs would mean that every tin pot dictator with access to the stuff is liable to be able to enrich themselves. I’m simply not convinced that exchanging a black gold rush for a yellow gold rush will make the planet any more secure.
Finally, there is the issue of technological solutions always being the best answer to everything. This is certainly part of the New Labour mindset, which is why Road Pricing and Carbon Credits are so much on the agenda. But technological solutions often only replicate low tech solutions in a way that seems to have little environmental benefit but massive civil liberty implications. You could, for example, simply pass on the cost of carbon onto the consumer via tax and business carbon trading, yet carbon credits are the fashion because they don’t ’seem’ to be the same thing and just so happen to provide the government with a wealth of data about our spending habits. They also tend to be 10-20 years away when what we need is action right now.
So yes, technology is good, but we shouldn’t lose sight of the wood for the trees.
March 2nd, 2007 at 2:02 pm
Sorry – just had to get that off my chest! :)
March 6th, 2007 at 10:47 pm
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