Paradigms and Systems - Impediments

Although technology has contributed to environmental problems, many people argue that those problems can be fixed by applying more technology. Sometimes, however, technological solutions cause other problems--as was pointed out by the ESD working group on manufacturing:

A target for improving the efficiency of the combustion of fossil fuels is to convert all available carbon in the fuel into carbon dioxide. On the other hand, carbon dioxide is a major greenhouse gas. Moreover, our means of achieving better thermal efficiencies is by increasing the temperature of the combustion process. A result of increasing temperature, however, is that more oxides of nitrogen are formed from the air used in combustion. Oxides of nitrogen are an important element in the formation of photochemical smog. Thus, in the pursuit of more efficient energy usage, it is possible other potentially undesirable side-effects may arise. (ESD Working Groups 1991, p. 24)

Jacques Ellul, a well-known French commentator on technology, argued as far back as 1964 that societies do not have much choice when it comes to the technologies they will use--because technologies tend to build upon themselves. Technologies create problems that in turn have to be fixed by new technologies. He gives the example of large cities that require technologies to cope with the concentration of people. Those technologies permit the cities to grow even further; and some, such as garbage-disposal units, create new pollution problems:

The present level of technique brings on new advances, and these in turn add to existing technical difficulties and technical problems, which demand further advances still. (p. 92)

Barry Commoner does not accept the view that technology is beyond human control and that it has a momentum of its own. He argues that the spiral of technical fixes occurs because of the failure to correct the fundamental flaw that technology is subject to in our society. He says that 'if technology is indeed to blame for the environmental crisis, it might be wise to discover wherein its "inventive genius" has failed us--and to correct that flaw--before entrusting our future survival to technology's faith in itself' (1972, p. 179).

Commoner, Barry 1972, The Closing Circle: Nature Man & Technology, Bantam, Toronto, New York, London.

Ecologically Sustainable Development Working Groups 1991, Final Report—Manufacturing, AGPS, Canberra.

Ellul, Jacques 1964, The Technological Society, trans. John Wilkinson, Vintage, New York.