ENVIRONMENTALISM AND TECHNOLOGY

Wait a minute, you might say, it is environmentalism against technology, for isn't technology a fundamental source of environmental problems?

This has been the position of deep greens. In fact, some trace all environmental problems to the beginning of agriculture, arguing that it was the shift from hunter-gatherer to farming that created what they consider the human cancer consuming the globe. Even moderate greens can be anti-tech, reflecting both skepticism about capitalism and the counter cultural ideology that characterizes most environmental discourse.

Consider, for example, something as mainstream, as the precautionary principle, which holds that no new technology be introduced until it can be demonstrated to have no harmful environmental impacts. Taken at face value, this embeds within it a strong preference for "privileging the present" - that is, attempting to ban or limit technological evolution - for the potential implications of all but the most trivial technological innovations can-not be known in advance.

Positioning environmentalism against technology, however, has its problems. For one, it misunderstands the nature of complex cultural systems. These inevitably evolve, generally towards greater complexity; consider, for example, how much more complex international governance, information networks, or financial structures are now than just a few years ago.

And technologies are evolving rapidly as well, particularly in the three areas that promise to impact environmental systems the most: biotechnology, nanotechnology, and information technology. The first will, over time, give us design capabilities over life; the second will let us manipulate matter at the molecular level; the third will change how we perceive and understand the world within which the first two are accomplished.

Moreover, developing such capabilities will give the cultures that do so significant competitive advantages over those that opt for stability rather than technological evolution. There are historical examples of this process

- for example, China, from roughly the 11th to the 14th centuries. At that time, China was the most technically advanced society, but for a number of reasons its elite chose stability over the social and cultural confusion that development and diffusion of technologies (such as gunpowder and firearms) might have caused. Northern Europe, however, followed a more chaotic path, including the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution, which favored technological evolution. The result: Eurocentric, not Chinese, culture forms the basis of today's globalization.

Applying this lesson to current conditions raises the question of whether deep-green opposition to certain technological advances, especially genetically modified organisms, could halt technological advance. Some societies -

Europe, in particular - may choose stasis over evolution. But biotech is such a powerful advance in human capabilities that other societies - especially developing countries with immediate needs that biotech can address - are not likely to forego its benefits. And to the extent, their cultures become more competitive by doing so, they may come to dominate global culture.

So is the answer then to simply give up and let technology evolve, as it will? Not at all. In fact, the essential problem with an ideological opposition to technology is that it prevents precisely the kind of dialog between the environmentalist and technological discourses required to create a rational and ethical anthropogenic earth. For technologies are not unproblematic, and their evolutionary paths are not preordained; rather, they are products of complex and little-known social, cultural, economic, and systems dynamics, it is important that they be questioned and understood.

The challenge is thus not unthinking opposition, or maintenance of ideological purity, or even meaningless repetition of ambiguous phrases such as "precautionary principle." It is far more demanding. It is to learn to perceive and understand technology as a human practice and experience, and to help guide that experience in ways that are environmentally appropriate.

BUT I WANT TO WORK ON ENVIRONMENTAL STUFF!

One of the horrible existential challenges of being a student is that, in most cases, one must at some point leave school and begin work, presumably in an area for which one has been training these many years. For those reading this column, the area of interest is likely environmental, usually expanded these days to include sustainability. Put bluntly, the relevant questions are likely to be "How do I do well and what is the job market like?" Recognizing that planning your career on the basis of a 750-word column is probably not a great idea, here are some thoughts while you hit the books. First, the good news. There are plenty of opportunities to do great things: to help your employer (be it a private firm, government, or NGO), help the world, and feed yourself. Now, the bad news. Most of these opportunities are disguised, most have nothing to do with environment as currently taught and thought about at most schools, many of the opportunities have yet to be invented, and almost any worthwhile job will require that you develop it yourself, from inside.

To begin with, traditional environmental jobs that is, those based on current regulatory and policy structures, primarily cleanup and end-of-pipe emissions control will be with us for a long time, especially in developing countries. They are necessary. But this field is not growing, offers few intellectual challenges, and will have little to do with solving the larger problems of the anthropogenic world albeit improving health significantly in developing countries. So if you really want to help the environment in the broader sense - perturbed climatic and oceanic systems; anthropogenic carbon, nitrogen, sulfur, and hydrologic system changes; biosphere disruptions - this is not the place for you.

The next step up is a position in the "sustainability industry." Superficially, at least, such jobs, which are frequently with niche consulting firms, are broader in scope and offer more intellectual opportunities. But caution is in order. The term "sustainability" has now grown to be so politically correct, and at the same time flown so far beyond mere ambiguity, that there is no substantive content to much of this work. In too many cases, it now amounts to a somewhat patronizing, highly ingrown dialog within a small circle of friends that tend to regard themselves as the great and the good, and spend a lot of time reinforcing one another's mental models.

The result is a nouveau utopianism that has tenuous connections with the real world, except for the few that are already True Believers. Thus, for example, I recently participated in a sustainability workshop where one conclusion was that firms should exist not for profit, but only to redistribute income (and that, by the way, money should be banned). Those with any historical background will recognize that this proposed policy closely tracks that of the early Leninist/Marxist Soviet Union. They did ban money - and the economy collapsed. Moreover, you can imagine how the typical executive would greet such a proposal as a model for how his/her firm could be "sustainable."

So, be careful if you want to work in this area. Before you jump in, you may want to work inside a firm first to get an idea of what companies really are like. It will help you maintain perspective. There are a few real opportunities - but caveat emptor.

So what to do? Back to first principles. The challenge of environmental (and related social) issues is precisely that they have become so all encompassing. They are not separable from the messy, multidisciplinary worlds of commerce, of ordinary life, of birth and death, of long natural cycles. So the kinds of things that contribute most to social and environmental progress - employee telework options, efficient network routing algorithms for air and ground transport systems, low-energy and reduced-water manufacturing technologies - come not from the environmental staff, but from the core operating competencies - engineers, business planners, product designers, and others. So, by all means remain committed to sustainability, but get expertise in international business, chemical engineering, or finance. Then, when you get your non-environmental, line position, you can start to change the world.

WORKING FOR THE ENVIRONMENT - INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX

A while ago, I was reading an article on pollution prevention written by an ex-EPA consultant, and was both amused and somewhat surprised to see "industrial ecology" identified as industry green wash.

My first response, of course, was dismissive: didn't the author realize that meaningful environmental progress could be achieved only through such systematic approaches as industrial ecology, and its implementation through (for example) Design for Environment and Life Cycle Assessment methodologies?

Indeed, pollution prevention as usually interpreted by environmental regulators is a singularly limited concept, a relatively insignificant extension of end-of-pipe approaches, and it requires something like industrial ecology to energize it.

But my initial reaction was both unfair and superficial. The author was not really reacting to industrial ecology as laid out in existing texts or as being implemented in some firms today. Rather, the article implicitly made an important point about the nature of "environment" itself: the very concept (and closely related concepts such as "wilderness" and "nature") is constructed from underlying mental models, which may differ significantly and carry very different policy and governance implications.

Thus, "industrial ecology" does not enter the environmental discourse as an objective concept (although industrial ecology studies strive for objectivity and good science). Rather, an environmentalist will see it as a response to growing political pressure by powerful administrative and bureaucratic systems, with a belief system based on scientific and technical rationality - as, in short, a defensive thrust based on a state/corporatist managerialism mental model.

Seen in this light, the concept carries several implications which to an environmentalist may be problematic: a powerful (and polluting) elite co-opting "real" environmentalism; establishment of a playing field (high technology and industrial systems) which implicitly degrades the knowledge base and operational characteristics of traditional environmental NGOs; and, more subtle but all the more powerful for that, a vision of a future "sustainable" world based on a high technology, urbanized society as opposed to an agrarian, localized world with large portions of limits to people.

It was important, therefore, not to take that article as just a naive rejection of industrial ecology and its promise, but to understand it as a reflection of deeply conflicting worldviews which were all the more critical for being implicit and, to a large extent, even unconscious.

And, of course, these two mental models - call them the managerialistic and the edenistic - are not the only common ones. Others which might be identified include the "authoritarian" (environmental crises require centralized authoritarian institutions); "communal" (with the caution that some communities can be extraordinarily violent towards minorities and outsiders); "ecosocialist" (capitalistic exploitation of workers and commoditization of the world are the source of environmental degradation); "ecofeminist" (male exploitation of nature andм women derive from the same power drive, and must be addressed concomitantly) and "pluralistic liberalism" (open collaboration involving diverse interests is the proper process to achieve environmental progress).

All of these raise some very difficult questions. For example, ecosocialism is somewhat tarnished by the abysmal environmental record of Eastern European communist governments.

The obvious question for the manager blessed with the opportunity to manage among these minefields is which one of these mental models is "right"? The unfortunate truth is that we as a society are not ready to answer that question yet.

This is not just because most people - environmental professionals, environmentalists, regulators, industry leaders - are naive positivists, and therefore unwilling or unable for the most part to recognize their own mental models, much less to respect other parties' mental models.

It also reflects a disturbing and almost complete ignorance about the implications of each model for the real world. What levels of human population, of biodiversity, of economic activity, would each mental model imply? What kind of governance structure? Who would win and who would lose (more precisely, what would the distributional effects of each model be)?

The important point, I think, is not the correctness of any particular model. Rather, it is the need to under- stand that differences among stakeholders in environmental disputes may arise not just from factual or economic disagreements, but from differences in fundamental worldviews - and that, at present, our current knowledge cannot anoint any particular one as "privileged."

A little sensitivity to how one's position and practices are understood by others can go a long way towards facilitating collaborations, which are both necessary and plenty difficult as it is. Before one too readily criticizes others, one should recall the Socratic admonition and know thyself - and thy mental models.

PRE-CAMBRIAN PERIOD

The Earth formed under so much heat and pressure that it formed as a molten planet. For nearly the first billion years of its formation - called the Hadean Period (or "hellish" period) - Earth was bombarded continuously by the remnants of the dust and debris - like asteroids, meteors and comets - until it formed into a solid sphere, fell into an orbit around the sun, and began to cool down.

As Earth began to take solid form, it had no free oxygen in its atmosphere. It was so hot that the water droplets in its atmosphere could not settle to form surface water or ice. Its atmosphere was also so poisonous that nothing would have been able to survive.

Earth's early atmosphere most likely resembled that of Jupiter's atmosphere, which contains hydrogen, helium, methane and ammonia, and is poisonous to humans.

Earth's atmosphere was formed mostly from the out gassing of such volatile compounds as water vapor, carbon monoxide, methane, ammonia, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, nitrogen, hydrochloric acid and sulfur produced by the constant volcanic eruptions that besieged the Earth. It had no free oxygen.

About 4.1 billion years ago, the Earth's surface - or crust - began to cool and stabilize, creating the solid surface with its rocky terrain. Clouds formed as the Earth began to cool, producing enormous volumes of rain - water that formed the oceans. For the next 1.3 billion years (3.8 to 2.5 billion years ago), called the Archean Period, first life began to appear (at least as far as our fossil records tell us... there may have been life before this!) and the world's landmasses began to form. Earth's initial life forms were bacteria, which could survive in the highly toxic atmosphere that existed during this time. In fact, all life was bacteria during the Archean Period.

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