Ariel's Post

I agree that technology has the potential to help alleviate (although by no means be a “magic solution” to) our environmental crisis. I support efforts to find more eco-friendly solutions for everything from obsessive fossil fuel usage to less and more biodegradable product-packaging solutions. However, with our society’s addiction to consumption, I wonder whether or not technology will ultimately help our crisis or worsen it. We may be attempting to build wind farms, but aren’t we also attempting to own a cooler cell phone every year and a new iPod every few Christmases and a better digital camera every once in a while?

I guess my concern lies not in the fact that technology is increasing, but in the worry that we aren’t making the most of our intellectual capacity. I fear we are only using our technologically inclined minds to increase our consumption— exactly the kind of thing the I=PAT equation proposes we reduce. If you want to buy into the idea that technology will someday save us from the environmental crisis (and I’m not even personally saying that I buy into that), you have to wonder: What happens in the meantime? What happens when the technologically inclined society that might create a cleaner car is the very same technologically inclined society that produces a million pairs of $100 ripped jeans every five minutes and makes you falsely feel like your $1,000 laptop needs to be replaced every year?

I feel like this concern is mirrored in the issue of stratospheric ozone depletion. One of the main causes of ozone depletion was CFCs in consumer aerosol cans. If you buy into the idea: Yes, technology might save us, but it will also inevitably convince us of the “problems” we have and come up with “solutions” to make our lives “easier.” Because isn’t non-aerosol hairspray such a pain to apply? I mean really, having to push a button multiple times when you could just push it once?

We might not have known then what we were doing, but we know now. So, let’s fix it.