Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
and (sound) science closes off questions and alternative possibilities. Moral and
technological development and economic progress (if not growth) become aligned
with instrumental policy frameworks, including measurements and quantifications
that encode moral, managerial and political perspectives that deny the significance
of other ways of seeing and doing things. In other words, our increasingly technological
society has become integral to the way we understand and interpret the world, our
proclivities and predispositions, and the structures of our thought and action, at
times even shaping our tactile, sensory and aesthetic experiences of the world.
Technology is not a neutral vehicle of human agency, but rather its essence. It must
be fashioned to match who we are, who we want to become, and the type of world
we need to build and sustain. Like sustainable development, technology is a political
act. As Davison writes:
The more we pursue goals of subjective choice, the more frantically we build a
world in which means and ends are dislocated - a circular dynamic that only
accelerates the processes of technological proliferation. And the more technology
proliferates, the more our objective world is alien to us and opaque in our
reflections. Moral inquiry is internalized into the task of self-understanding and
self-expression, rather than that of world understanding and world-building.
Self-expression becomes self-creation in a world meaningful only to the extent
that human production creates and sustains it.
(2004: 94)
Biotechnology, nanotechnology, genetic engineering, nuclear power, hybrid cars
and wind turbines are all themselves expressions of human practical reason, moral
choices and indeed a cultural value system (or systems). There may be no easy or
readily apparent answers, but we do need to see technology (and science) as being
constitutive of the ends we wish to fashion, rather than as ends in themselves.
Case study: nuclear power
In
The Revenge of Gaia
(2006), James Lovelock argues that if it had not been for
the triumph of romantic idealism at Kyoto, we could all be enjoying the benign
benefits of nuclear fusion technology. Nuclear power is easy to produce, creates little
waste, most of which is completely harmless, and is free of CO
2
emissions, and its
radioactivity has negligible effects on human health. In fact, previous nuclear disasters
have been disasters in name only - few people have been killed (75 in the 20 years
following Chernobyl), with contaminated areas turning into wildlife havens because
they scare away hungry farmers and greedy developers. As a major element in a
portfolio of low-carbon energy resources, nuclear power will enable reasonable
economic development and lifestyle improvements to continue. The alternative is a
Malthusian global depopulation, a serious undermining of everyone's standard of
living and the ending of hope for the developing nations. This view has received
support from Jesse Ausubel (2007) who, writing in the
International Journal of
Nuclear Governance, Economy and Ecology
, refers to renewable energy resources
as 'boutique fuels' that look good in small quantities but that, compared with nuclear
power and natural gas with carbon capture, are grossly inefficient and have serious
implications for land-use planning. Do you want a wind farm spoiling your view?
