Technology and Environment Essay ⋆ Environment Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

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Etymologically, t echnology (based on ancient Greek techne and logos) means the study of crafts. But the word is usually understood in a much broader sense to include objects (i.e., a hammer, car, or microscope), techniques (i.e., writing, agriculture, or advertising) as well as processes influencing aspects of human life (i.e., when technology is seen as creating its own culture or determining economic cycles). The relationships between technology and the environment are very close, as technology is sometimes defined as the way by which humans manipulate their environment to fulfill their needs. Indeed, through the invention of tools and techniques, humans have been able to take advantage of resources found in the environment. They have been able to increase resources, for instance through agriculture.

Today, as people are often surrounded by devices such as computers or cell phones, use transportation means ranging from cars up to planes for traveling, and eat food grown in greenhouses, there is a general feeling-at least in industrialized countries-that humanity lives in a more technological society than ever before. On the one hand, this sensation makes one think that humanity has freed itself of environmental constraints and is no longer dependent on what can be found in nature in order to survive. On the other hand, humans seem to have become dependent on these technologies, which contribute to the degradation and depletion of the environment and in some most extreme forms-such as nuclear weapons-can be a threat to the very existence of humanity. However, the relationship between technology and the environment is much more complex that either improvement or depletion.

Technology is most often referred to by the objects it includes. In this understanding, a spade, a plow, or a combine harvester are all technologies. From the simplest up to the most sophisticated, these devices allow humans to do things they could not do otherwise. In this sense, technological objects are considered as means to reach ends defined by their designers and users.

But technology also refers to techniques. For instance, agriculture can be considered as a technology to provide food, or writing as a technology to communicate through space and time. A technique does not refer directly to a specific object, but to a set of knowledge, skills, and routines that allows one to arrange and use objects in order to reach a specific goal. Most techniques can be put into practice only through the use of specific objects-agriculture in its simplest form implies the use of basic tools. Even observation activities may require the use of technological devices: The monitoring of a national park relies on data transferred by satellites or on rangers equipped with vehicles. Some authors consider that a technique can only be viewed as a technology when it is reflectively used to solve problems or satisfy needs. In this understanding, a technique for playing a musical instrument would not be considered as a technology. However, the distinction is not always easy to make.

A third understanding of the word technology considers it as a more abstract concept defining a process that influences the way humans deal with the world. This understanding relates to expressions like “technological society” or “technological culture” when they are used to qualify the state we live in. In these expressions, technology does not refer to specific devices or techniques, but is perceived as a force that brings changes to the way humans interact among themselves and with their environment compared to a situation with less or no technology. This understanding is driven by a feeling that the proliferation of technological objects is something ineluctable, almost independent from human will.

Technology and Science

Current technological developments seem to rely strongly on scientific discoveries. The petrochemical industry would probably not have had the same development and impact without modern chemistry. The idea that scientific research is the main factor behind technological progress became common during the 19th century and culminated in the postWorld War II period, influencing both scientific and technological policies. In the United States, such a view can be found in the Vannevar Bush model that drove federal scientific policy from the 1940’s on and stated that technological innovations would trickle down from massive investments in fundamental research. It led to increased cooperation between scientific institutions such as universities and high technology firms and government branches. The word technoscience has been proposed by some authors in order to define this state in which science and technology are so strongly related that it is not possible to distinguish them.

Despite the strong links between science and technology, they are different activities and should not be confused. Science is defined as an activity that seeks to gain knowledge about the world, while technology enables human beings to complete specific tasks. A common misunderstanding stemming from this confusion is considering technology as applied science. When scientific results are applied, they usually lead to technological innovations, but not all results have applications. Moreover, not all technological innovations result from the application of scientific findings. They can also be the result of trial and error processes undertaken without an understanding of the mechanisms behind the innovation. For example, agricultural innovation relied for a long time on observations made by farmers before agronomists and botanists fostered rapid changes using scientific results. It is also important to note that most scientific activity would not be possible at all without the technological instruments used for observing or measuring.

Environmental Impacts

One of the reasons why technology is sometimes perceived as an independent force is its continuous growth over long historical periods. Retracing a history of technology implies retracing a history of humanity. The periodization of early human ages is based on technological criteria such as Paleolithic (early stone age with chipped-stone tools), Neolithic (new stone age, which saw the development of polished stone tools and pottery) up to the Bronze Age. The distinction between prehistoric and historic ages is also based on the technological criteria of the appearance of writing. French philosopher of technology Gilbert Simondon goes as far as to say that humanity comes from the use of technologyby becoming technological beings humans have distinguished themselves from other species.

Technology is also a constituent of the humanenvironment relationship as it is the means by which humans are able to free themselves from environmental constraints, but it is also dependent on resources found in the environment. However, it seems that the human impact on the environment due to technologies is growing larger.

The first technologies used by humans consisted of very simple tools that could be found in their surroundings, such as sticks or rocks with useful shapes for reaching or breaking other objects. As humans learned to shape rock, wood, and other materials into more complex tools, direct dependence on environmental conditions began to decrease. The invention of cutting stones, for instance, allowed humans to use animal skins or furs, and therefore become less dependent on climatic conditions and survive in colder environments.

The development of agriculture and the subsequent sedentarization of communities it implied was probably the technological development that had the strongest impact on the environment for a long period. Historians of technology, although they use different types of periodization, usually consider the whole range of time from the point after which agriculture and sedentarization established themselves as dominant forms of human dwelling around 10,000 B.C.E. up to the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century as a single period. Agriculture contributed to powerfully transforming the environment by several means. First, with agriculture came the sedentarization of communities, with the first permanent settlements growing into towns, occupying space in a very different way than in former lifestyles. Second, the first areas where agriculture developed being floodplains of large rivers (the valleys of the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers in Mesopotamia, the Nile Valley in Egypt, or the Yangtze in China), there was a need to develop complex irrigation systems in order to take advantage of the regular floods of these rivers. These systems were developed as early as 3,000 B.C.E. and considerably shaped their environment. Chinese rice growing, for example, had a significant impact on the landscape. Even in Western Europe, where there was no need for such technological irrigation systems, early agriculture had an impact on the environment through deforestation.

Although there were great spatial variations over this long period of time, the main technological evolutions improved ways of living without radically changing them. The Agricultural Revolution that took place during the 17th century was essentially a rationalization and an intensification of the technologies available at that time. However, these were made possible through a new attitude toward technology of trying to understand how things worked, not just how to make them work.

The drive for scientists to foster technological innovation increased during the Enlightenment period and is one of the factors that favored the Industrial Revolution that began in Western Europe in the 18th century and eventually spread over most of the world. It triggered a period of fast technological transformations that also brought major changes to the ways humans occupied and exploited the earth’s surface.

One of the main technological changes driving the Industrial Revolution was the invention and diffusion of steam-powered machinery, first in factories (i.e., spinning machines) then in transportation (i.e., trains or steamboats). The generalization of this form of power in industries throughout the 19th century had various environmental consequences. Steam engines were powered through the combustion of wood or coal; these resources had to be exploited more intensively in order to meet growing needs. The opening of new coal pits and deeper digging in existing ones had considerable roles in destroying ecosystems. The development of train transportation led to deforestation, as there was a great need for timber for crossties for the tracks. In the United States the situation became so dramatic by the end of the 19th century that a governmental Forest Service was created in order to manage timber resources and avoid depletion. Another consequence of the use of coal as the major fuel was much air pollution in industrial cities.

Just as the first Industrial Revolution centered around coal, it was sources of power that characterized the second Industrial Revolution and its environmental consequences. The exploitation of mineral oil resources that developed in the 1860s enabled their use as fuel, leading to considerable development of prototypes of gas engines. The invention of gasoline and diesel engines in the last two decades of 19th century led to the car becoming a significant means of transportation, with all its consequences in terms of urban organization and pollution later on in the 20th century. But petroleum has also had important impacts on the environment with the development of the petrochemical industry. Another important technological impact on the environment at the turn of the century was the use of electricity as a source of power for lighting and above all for urban transportation means such as subways and tramways. The development of this source of power during the 20th century had spectacular environmental consequences with the damming of rivers in order to produce hydroelectricity.

The two World Wars are often depicted as periods of important technological development; in order to have an advantage over their opponents belligerent governments invested in research for new technologies. But these periods also brought some important changes in the way people considered technologies. Technologies based on nuclear power are symptomatic for this, as their development for civil use was accompanied by constant opposition from more or less large parts of the population, depending on the country. If at first it was largely the destructive capacities of nuclear power used as a weapon that fed this opposition, accidents in the power plants of Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania in 1979 or at Chernobyl in the former Soviet Union in 1986 reinforced popular opposition.

Public enthusiasm for technology in the postwar era was also altered by the growth of production in sectors that had emerged with the first two Industrial Revolutions. These had much more actual effects on the environment than the destructive potential of nuclear power. In the context of a competition economy, growth of consumption led to more technological innovation in order to differentiate everyday goods and renew the need for consumption. Therefore it induced more waste or pollution because of the constant growing production of goods.

During the last quarter of the 20th century, the development of biotechnologies has led to a new understanding of the consequences of human activity on the environment. Biotechnologies are technologies that use or modify living organisms in order to favor some of their features or even add new ones. One of the ways biotechnologies may have consequences on the environment is through the introduction of new breeds of cattle or crops for agricultural use through the modification of genetic information of existing species. These new breeds are called genetically modified organisms (GMO). By modifying the gene stock of living organisms it becomes possible to create new species such as pestresistant corns.

Environmental impacts of biotechnologies were initially considered rather promising. It was said that biotechnological plants would make agriculture less dependent on environmental constraints such as weather or soil conditions. By creating crops that are pest-resistant or adapt to specific soil conditions, the need for fertilizers or pesticide could be drastically reduced. Despite the introduction of such crops in some countries, genetically modified organisms are very controversial as there is evidence that they are altering their environment by making some pests and weeds resistant to pesticides. There also may be a transfer from the modified genes to other plants, with all the unintended consequences this may have. Finally, as some agro-industrial firms are designing crops that are best suited for their respective environments, they may be a threat to biodiversity, especially in developing countries where there is an urgency to increasing agricultural production and where it can seem attractive to replace less productive local crops.

A consequence of the rising impact of technology on the environment during the second half of the 20th century has been to trigger even more innovation, but this time in order to minimize negative technological effects. These are sometimes called green technologies and are oriented toward efficiency in energy use, waste recycling, or reparation of damaged ecosystems. The main push for these efforts comes from governmental financial incentives and stricter regulation. In a way, technology is again clearly dependent on the state of the environment.

Theories of Technology

Whereas for a long time impacts of technologies were mostly considered positive, the consequences of the introduction of new technologies since the Industrial Revolution have been viewed in more ambivalent ways. Relating to this ambivalence, there are different theories that can be used in order to study technologies. Philosopher of technology Andrew Feenberg offers a framework in order to characterize theories of technology by looking at whether they consider technologies to be value neutral (they are just means) or value laden (they include ends) and at whether they are considered autonomous or human-controlled.

Some theories of technology are deterministic in the sense that they consider that technologies have a functional logic that is autonomous from the rest of the social sphere and in return determines how society must function in order to make use of these technologies. However, the determination is considered to be value neutral in the sense that technologies develop only in order to meet human ends. In such a view, it would be said that water regulation techniques for rice culture in ancient China required centralization of decisions and therefore determined the form Chinese imperial societies took. Such a view can for instance be found in traditional Marxist theories.

However, regarding the proliferation of negative effects on the environment occurring from technologically mediated human activity, technology is often perceived as a threat to the environment or even to humanity as a whole and developed beyond the human needs it is supposed to fulfill. Such a view is largely present in public opinion, in some parts of the environmental movement, and also among some philosophers who have worried about the negative effects of technology on human freedom. In these views, technology is also conceived as autonomous but value laden. Such theories have been developed by philosophers such as Martin Heidegger or Jacques Ellul who claimed that technologies have their own ends that are guided by an instrumental rationality based on efficiency, which influences all other domains of activities not only by determining how the technology has to be used, but also by making efficiency the core value of all social activities.

Instrumentalism qualifies theories that consider technologies neutral. But unlike determinism, human agency is considered as the major force shaping them. In this view technology is pure instrumentality and its use is determined by other aspects of social life. Instrumentalism holds that technology is neither good nor bad, but depends on social, political, or cultural values and its outcome will depend on how humans make use of it. This view is very common among governmental institutions, engineers, and scientists. In instrumental theories there is an implicit idea that the negative consequences of a technology can be reversed, since those are consequences of human action. However, this view does not acknowledge the complexity of human agency, especially the variety of sometimes competing uses that can be made of a single technology.

A fourth kind of theory of technology holds that there is no clear distinction between means and ends when speaking of technology. This view can be found in critical theories of technology (i.e., Herbert Marcuse, Andrew Feenberg) or in some versions of Actor-Network Theory such as the one developed by Bruno Latour. The conflation of ends and means happens because technology implies human practice. On the one hand, a technology can be used in ways very different than it was intended, showing that it is not an end for itself. On the other hand, the very existence of a specific technology can lead humans to aim at ends they would not have thought about without this technology. So technology is also not just a means in order to reach predefined ends. In such views, there is no technological determinism but a path of dependency can occur once one technology is chosen. Humans retain a certain level of control, but because of the interrelatedness of ends and means, each technological change will bring changes in the way a society is organized. It is therefore impossible to reduce the question of how humans should deal with technology to a matter of wise or bad use. It is rather a political matter and always implies questions of social organization such as: Who takes advantage of a particular technology? What does it imply for everyday life? What environmental consequences may derive from it?

Technology and Policy

Technology is an important issue in environmental policy since it is both a cause of environmental problems but also very often a solution to them. One of the main ways in which environmental policy affects technology is the adoption of environmental regulations that put constraints on the use of specific technologies. Because industrial development has had a strong negative impact on the environment through depletion of natural resources or pollution, legal measures have been taken in order to limit its negative effects. As in the past, technology allows humans to transform the environment to take advantage of its resources, but the possibility of irreversible negative impacts on the environment because of technology have become higher. Most industrialized countries now have sets of environmental regulations that try to limit the negative impacts of technology. These regulations can take different forms such as increased taxation for companies that use dangerous technologies, strict norms of how to use technologies or even the banning of some technologies or products. But there can also be incentives to promote or develop new technologies, as in the case of renewable energies such as wind or solar power.

The adoption of a regulation is often subject to resistance from business circles using the targeted technologies. Constraining environmental laws are often considered a threat to the competitiveness of companies using the technologies in question in their production process. However, strict environmental rules can also have positive effects on the competitiveness of firms in that they force them to be innovative in order to be able to match legal norms as with the high level of governmental taxation on gas in Western European countries, which has led car manufacturers to develop more fuel-efficient vehicles.

One of the main issues at stake in the formulation of environmental policy is the ability to diagnose the actual problems. Therefore, technologies for the measurement of various factors intervening in environmental problems are very important for environmental policies. For instance, satellites can track changes in wide land cover patterns, such as the progression of deserts. Some environmental matters, such as global warming, require use of a set of technologies before they can be grasped. The liability of those technologies and the results they produce are often contested and give way to controversies led by experts in order to determine if one technology or the other is appropriate to make the diagnosis.

Technology has shaped the environment even through repairing damage caused by humanity. In the second half of the 20th century, important efforts have been made in order to restore altered ecosystems. Even when restoration projects are able to recreate functioning ecosystems and enhance the environmental value, it is not a return to the original nature free from human intervention. Very often these ecosystems are recreated through what are called green technologies. They require much human monitoring or intervention in order to retain a high environmental value. In fact, most of the areas called natural today have been shaped by human activity. Most of resources, whether exploited in a sustainable way, depleted, or put under strict protection are included in technological networks that determine how humanity can or should deal with them. This has led some authors to talk about “technonatures” to qualify this state where nature is no longer untouched by human hands, but where all natural resources are somehow marked by technological activity, whether for exploitation, distribution, protection, or just observation.

Bibliography:

Jesse Ausubel and Hedy E. Sladovich, eds., Technology and Environment (National Academy Press, 1989);
Ruth Schwartz Cowan, A Social History of American Technology (Oxford University Press, 1997);
Andrew Feenberg, Transforming Technology: A Critical Theory Revisited (Oxford University Press, 2002);
Bruno Latour, “Morality and Technology: The End of the Means,” Theory Culture and Society (v.19/5-6, 2002);
Bruno Latour, Politics of Nature (Harvard University Press, 2004);
Isabelle Stengers, Power and Invention (University of Minnesota Press, 1997);
Jeffrey Stine and Joel A. Tarr, “At the Intersection of Histories: Technology and the Environment,” Technology and Culture (v.39/4, 1998);
Erik Swyngedouw, Social Power and the Urbanization of Water (Oxford University Press, 2004).