April 6th, 2008
Can Technology Meet the Challenge?
I remember when there were population explosion predictions more than forty years ago: famine and global doom were touted as likely outcomes. Then farmng practics and crop varieties changed and much of the expected disaster fizzled into the continuing run of regional famines that plague poorer parts of the world.
Now there’s a heated debate over whether technology can meet the challenges being predicted because of global warming. Some critics of the U.N.’s IPCC say the group did not look hard enough at its own predictions for technological advance, and the global warming problems may not all yield to tech advances. The IPCC, of course, begs to differ.
I’ve lived long enough to see that technology has not solved a number of very obvious, widespread problems. Drunk-driving. Whatever happned to those imagined perfect highways with magnetic stripes that keep all cars in line, literally? Humans’ procilivity for chemical addictions. We’ve developed some new chemicals to which we can become addicted, however. War. Some Darwinians may see war as a useful evolutionary tool, I suspect. Drought, famine, Hurricane Katrina, AIDS, tsunamis, batting slumps, incompetent bankers or politicians.
The pattern seems clear, where major problems intersect with the behavior of many humans, technology may not come up with a workable answer. And that assumes we are asking the right questions to begin with. Americans right now want cheaper fuel for their cars. Is that really the crucial issue?
A newsman since 1969, Harry Fuller has worked for CBS, ABC, CNBC Europe, CNET and was founding news director at TechTV. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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