On rapid responses to technology

To clarify after having received some comments from my last post, what I mean by "technology" is the technology that has been brought into the world in the past few decades, the rate of whose further introduction has followed something like Moore's law. That rate is an incomprehensible one. This is the technology I will continue to talk about in the next few posts.

At our monthly Sustainability Ethics Roundtable, the topic was a timely one, for me at least: Technology, Risk, Ethics and Sustainability, and the discussion was led by Professor Andrew Maynard of the School of Public Health and the Risk Science Center. One of the significant issues with technology that he pointed out is that given the kind of technology being introduced, and the rate at which it is being introduced, we do not have even slightly adequate mechanisms in place to assess whether or not that technology is doing potential harm in the world; we do not have mechanisms in place to respond rapidly to the technology itself. This is somewhat related to what Jon Kabat-Zinn has said, where Kabat-Zinn speaks of an emotional and metaphysical understanding of technology. Regardless, the issue of response and understanding is kind of like the issue of water pollution or air pollution (of course, technology is intimately related to these issues) in which we know toxic chemicals are being released indiscriminately, and yet many laws in place do not allow for adequate protection of those natural gifts and human health. The way that our legal structure is set up, at least around environmental issues, is that significant evidence beyond an ill-defined threshold is required, gathered over a long period of time, before any judgement can be made about the toxicity of a technological process or output. (This raises the significant issue of time scales associated with negative outcomes.) During that time, people have made money, grown in power and grown in influence such that the end result is likely not a discontinuation of the technology, but rather maybe a Pigouvian tax on the technology. Such is the case with technologies that result in greenhouse gas emissions, but in this case, it is politically infeasible to even have a rudimentary tax on emissions.

It seems to me that there are several reasons why we don't have adequate mechanisms and checks on technology in our society, and I hope to elaborate on these in individual posts over the next few days.

• We equate social prosperity with economic prosperity, but we can only achieve economic prosperity if we can consume, and we can only satisfactorily consume if what we consume is something different that what we have already consumed. Consequently, social prosperity boils down to an increasing reliance on technological advancement. This means we feel that more technology is always better than less technology.
• We have convinced ourselves that if we don't do it, someone else will, so we should try to make a buck off of it.
• There is always a vested interest in the development of new technologies, such that its development necessitates its use.
• There is an increasing diffusion in those with access to technology.
• The potential negative impacts have much longer time scales for their emergence and recognition, but the positive impacts (increasing amounts of money) is necessarily shorter term.

There are likely several other reasons, but I don't claim to be an expert in knowing them all. But what I do feel is that we are continuing to live in a world in which we don't learn from our mistakes. We therefore will continue in a world in which we can do no harm, and that the answer to any problem caused because of technology is a newer technology. The Watson computer (or the analytic methods) developed by IBM is touted as only a good thing. But if we tried to ask those very developers the potential negative outcomes of their system, will they have an answer? Will they have adequately assessed the risks (not only in terms of money value) of such capabilities? I hope so. How might we envision a future in which not more is the answer, but appropriate is the approach? Just because technology is good for one thing does not mean it is good for, on, or to something else.

Guest blog #11 - Dr. Jack Edelstein's thoughts on conservation and entropy

"What do we mean by the term ‘energy conservation’ or more generally ‘resource conservation?’  At first thought, the answer seems obvious:  conservation means using less stuff, thereby making a smaller environmental footprint than would have otherwise been made, and avoiding a certain disruption to the resource base (e.g. biodiversity) that would have otherwise occurred.  What, exactly, is it that needs to be conserved, and how does conservation actually work?

From a practical point of view, absolute conservation would completely preserve the current status of the earth’s biodiversity -- by neither depleting any natural resource (e.g. wildlife, trees, water), nor by depositing any man-made matter onto the environment (e.g. trash, smog, and carbon).

There are four ways that we can conserve energy, and any other [non-renewable] resource -- 1) consume less, 2) eliminate waste, 3) increase efficiency, 4) substitute renewable.  We will describe each of these four conservation methods through the simple example of a shower. 

The first way to conserve is to actually consume less water by reducing the shower time, and/or by reducing the flow of the showerhead.  Another way to consume less is to lower the water temperature, thereby reducing the amount of energy used (in heating the water).

The second way to conserve is to eliminate or reduce waste.  We distinguish waste from excess by defining the former as the act of consuming resources without deriving any value -- as in the case of a dripping showerhead. Excess is much more subjective than waste -- e.g. taking a very long shower is not wasteful in the strictest sense (since some marginal benefit or utility is being derived), but at some point it becomes excessive in that the derived benefit is miniscule.

The third way to conserve is to increase efficiency by utilizing less resources in the creation of a given unit of output.  In the case of a shower, improved efficiency can be a low-flow showerhead, or a more energy-efficient water heater.  However, efficiency by itself does not lead to conservation, due to the Jevon's paradox (as explained in an earlier post by Darshan).

The fourth way to conserve is to substitute renewable resources for non-renewable ones.  An example is utilizing solar collectors to heat the water (instead of fossil fuel), and harvesting rainwater instead of drawing water from an underground aquifer.


                    Reduce         Eliminate     Maximize      Substitute   
               consumption        waste         efficiency      renewables   
Cost               Zero             Low       High          ???    

The expenses associated with these four conservation strategies range from zero to high cost -- depending on the level of technology required. Reducing consumption costs nothing since it is entirely a behavioral strategy.  Similarly, eliminating waste generally entails a behavioral approach augmented by a low input of technology. The ‘efficiency’ approach is generally technology-intensive and therefore expensive, and often risky.  Finally, the cost of substituting renewable for non-renewables is quite variable.  It is generally high in that it usually involves an advanced technology component, but it can also be low, as in the case of rain-water collection discussed above. 

A review of the academic literature as well as the general media reveals a strong bias toward energy conservation strategies that are based on the efficiency and renewable options -- the two more expensive options.  In other words, the two conservation approaches that cost the least and could have the most immediate impact -- i.e. to use less and to eliminate waste -- are the ones that are least supported, and often outright ignored. (There are a number of reasons for this, which will be addressed in a future post)

The power of Darshan’s project is that it represents by far the most cost-effective approach to conservation --  simply using less (though it may not actually be that simple to do).  By using absolutely less matter, Darshan is impacting the entire production chain associated with the consumption of physical goods.

Perhaps that’s why the name of this project is “Entropy”. If I understand the 2nd law of thermodynamics, one of the ideas it posits is that the physical world is constantly seeking a state of equilibrium, through a process defined as entropy.  As an outcome of the forces of entropy, the planet attained a state of equilibrium many millions of years ago, and this equilibrium was maintained until homo sapiens started roaming the earth.  The activities of humanity are increasingly disturbing this equilibrium, and the newly resultant equilibrium may become (or already is) inhospitable to sustained life.

The essence of conservation, then, is to understand that the equilibrium into which humanity entered was ideally suited to the evolution of homo sapiens and all other life.  Conservation entails respecting that equilibrium, and reduces our interference with it. Using less is the most powerful way we as individuals can conserve the planet."

~Dr. Jack Edelstein.


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I love his last paragraph.