INFLUENCE OF TECHNOLOGY

WHO HAS THE DEEPSET RELATIONSHIP?

KEY POINT!

• TECHNOLOGY REMOVES US FROM NATURE!• BUILDS A ‘NICE LITTLE WORLD FOR US TO LIVE IN.

• INCREASES THE DISTANCE BETWEEN US AND THE RESOURCES WE USE.

• ‚EVERY TIME WE INVENT SOMETHING NEW, WE FORGET HOW TO DO

SOMETHING‛.

• MORE TECHNOLOGY = MORE DESTRUCTIVE IMPACTS

Our relationship is now more distant.

BIOPHILIA

• Technology

BiophobiaBiophilia

A QUOTE

• Our culture has seldom been inclined to confront

the profound changes that accompany

technological innovation. Like a carrot prompting a

cart horse, technology entices us forward in a way

that keeps us from noticing much about the road

ahead, each offering results in such a slight

movement that by the time we realize we are far

from home, no serious re-examination of our fate

seems possible.

— Attributed to J. Robert Oppenheimer, Ethics for

New Life Forms

WHY IS THIS SIGNIFICANT?

• Do you know who this author is?

• If you do, it might make the quote make a bit more

sense.

• Look it up!

“I am become death, the destroyer of worlds”

J. Robert Oppenheimer created the first ever atomic

bomb, which was dropped on Hiroshima and

Nagasaki in 1945, killing over 200,000 people.

SHOOT FIRST, ASK QUESTIONS LATER.

• Humans are very curious – we love to look at the carrot (technology) and not the road ahead (nature).

• It is easy for us to become blinded to the effects of our marvellous advances as we enjoy the comfort they bring.

• Vicious cycle – create technology, don’t notice effects, get further separated from nature, make new technology with even bigger effects, get separated more, don’t notice effects etc, etc.

EXAMPLES

• DDT – 1940‘s

• this stuff is awesome!!!!!! Get a plane and spray it on

your crops –it kills all the bugs and you get way

more crops! MAKE MONEY MONEY, MAKE MONEY

MONEY – Boo Yeah!

• Buuuuuuutt…..

• 1960‘s - It seeps into our water ways and kills all the

fish and birds.

CFC’S

• Chlorofluorocarbons – we can use this to make

fridges, aerosols, cleaning products and all kinds of

cool stuff – it‘s non toxic, doesn‘t react with other

chemical‘s and doesn‘t burn. How smart are we?

• Oh Oh – It wrecks the ozone layer.

POWER GENERATION

• 1700‘s. ―I just invented a steam engine. What you

do is heat up some water and when the steam rises

it turns things – so we don‘t have to. All we need is

something to keep burning, like coal, or gas, or oil.

We can get machines to do all the jobs that are

really hard for us – we‘ll all be rich!‖

• 21st century – ahhh actually it turns out that the

world is getting hotter because there is too much

carbon in the air, which traps in the heat. And, our

population got real big and there‘ more people in

the world than the earth can support – whoopsie.

COLTAN

• Look, mobile phones – now we can be on facebookinstead of litsening to that boring idiot with the power point – awesome!

• Circuit boards for mobile phones require coltan – coltancomes from central Africa.

• Gorilla habitat is being destroyed to mine coltan.

• Extensive civil war through this region – armies in Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda and the Congo are all financed by the sale of coltan – usually with local slaves.

• Watch the video and read info about coltan mining at OES blog

• Anyone seen ‗Hunger Games‘?

ALBERT SPEER

• Born in Germany in 1905.

• Licensed architect by age of 23.

• Speer‘s creative genius as Hitler‘s Armaments

minister is credited with keeping WW II going far

longer than it otherwise would have.

• Jailed for 20 years after the war.

• ―after years of frustrated efforts I was wild to

accomplish things – and twenty-eight years old. For

the commission to do great building, I would have

sold my soul like Faust. Now I had found my

Mephistopheles”.

• “One seldom recognises the devil when he has his

hand on your shoulder”

WHAT SHOULD WE DO INSTEAD?

• ―To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution

of intelligent tinkering.‖

- Aldo Leopold

WHAT, JUST BAD STUFF?

• Widespread impacts of industrialisation led to

romantic movement – appreciating beauty and

celebrating nature.

• This led to establishing National Parks and

preservation societies.

• Provides us with greater access to the natural world

– photos, stories, transportation, comfort while in

there.

• Watch the ‗Wild Fashions‘ video and read info

about surfboards at OES blog

KEY POINT!

• Technology gives us access to natural

environments.

KEY POINTS

• TECHNOLOGY REMOVES US FROM NATURE.

Our relationship is now more distant.

• Technology gives us access to natural

environments.

• THERE IS AN ‘UNEASY REALTIONSHIP’ BETWEEN

TECHNOLOGY AND PEOPLE WHO CARE ABOUT THE

NATURAL WORLD.

GEORGE WRIGHT

―The limited empirical evidence available suggests

that the increasing use of technology in outdoor

recreation will have fundamental effects on the

emotional relationship between humans and the

natural environment, resulting in a lessened

emotional attachment to the land, especially in local

areas. This may be critical to our future relationship to

the land‖

ALDO LEOPOLD

• ―Civilization has so cluttered this elemental man-

earth relationship with gadgets and middlemen

that awareness of it is growing dim. We fancy that

industry supports us, forgetting what supports

industry.‖

• ―Like winds and sunsets, wild things were taken for

granted until progress began to do away with

them. Now we face the question whether a still

higher 'standard of living' is worth its cost in things

natural, wild and free. For us of the minority, the

opportunity to see geese is more important that

television.‖

• ―The modern dogma is comfort at any cost.‖

• ―But wherever the truth may lie, this much is crystal-

clear: our bigger-and-better society is now like a

hypochondriac, so obsessed with its own economic

health as to have lost the capacity to remain

healthy. . . . Nothing could be more salutary at this

stage than a little healthy contempt for a plethora

of material blessings.‖