Remember the “Home of Tomorrow” films from mid 20th century World’s Fair exhibits? You know, the ones predicting that by the year 2000 technology would give us meals in pill form, cars that fly and robots that do our dishes? Oh yeah, and that home would be on the moon or maybe even mars. Cool!
We may not fly ourselves to work yet, but technology has given us pretty remarkable advances in science and medicine, not to mention some pretty cool stuff for the rest of us: iPods to carry our entire music collection in the palm of our hand, BlackBerries to stay connected wherever we go and Tivo to watch TV on our own time. It’s hard to imagine life before these inventions and 10 years from now it’ll be hard to imagine it without the next “insanely great product” as Steve Jobs likes to say.
However, like many environmentally conscious people, I’ve come to have a less idealistic and more sober view of technology. Sure, technology can put us on the moon, but it can also lead to nuclear annihilation or worse…cyborgs from the future called “Terminators” that would stop at nothing to wipe us all out! Yikes!
Okay so we haven’t created any Terminators yet, but we do manage to generate 50 million tons of eWaste (Electronic Waste) a year (1) - waste that is threatening to pollute our ground water with lead, mercury and other toxins. Footage of Chinese workers sifting through piles of contaminated eWaste in Jennifer Baichwal’s 2007 documentary “Manufactured Landscapes” reveals a very ugly side of recycling.
Given these and other unforeseen consequences, some people have lost faith in technology. Some would even prefer to live without any technology at all. But not me. I still believe that technology can fulfill some of the idealistic promises from those World’s Fair films and do so without compromising the very future it promises to create.
Take for example, renewable energy and building design technologies that are helping us offset the problems created by earlier technologies. Computers, cell phones and consumer electronics, used in moderation, can expand our educational horizons, fuel our imaginations and help us to maintain our personal relationships.
The challenge for companies and individuals will be to expect socially responsible technologies. Everyone wants to tell you which Plasma TV to buy or what cell phone is right for you. In this blog, I’ll explore the sustainable considerations of technology - the options we have to choose and use technology responsibly and the chance we have to be, well…technically green.
Start the conversation – post comments below or email Will.
(1)http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/92843/electronic_waste_a_global_problem.html