When you get to the bottom of each of these authors arguments, the thing you need to take away is that, we all have problems that can be help/solved by technology. Where they differ is the rate at which we should utilize technology and risks we should take while doing so. Douthwaite’s biggest argument is that “Technology can thus be employed to buy us time during which we can attend to…ourselves” (pg. 32). He argues that we should utilize as much technology as possible as often as possible in order to buy us time to fix the root of the issue. The other authors, Johnston and the Huesemann’s, both argue towards there being too many negative impacts of relying in such ways in technology to risk it and we should focus on the cause first, not counteracting it first. Johnston even states that “Modern problems cannot be reduced to mere engineering solutions over the long term” (pg. 54). The Huesemann’s say we always need to be aware of “negative side effects of innovative technologies” (pg. 15). In short, Douthwaite’s complete reliance on technology first is frowned up by the other authors who believe fixing the root is more important first.
Technology, society and the environment do not go hand in hand naturally. Trying to find man made fixes to problems in the environment does not always work because some were originally the result of similar fixes themselves. For example, the social problem of people wanting easier access to cars and similar machines led to increase in production which in turn led to more environmental problems like pollution of water and air near factories and in large, the world. I don’t think these unintended consequences should stop us from using technology to fix problems but we should definitely be warier of them
I would agree that the overall claim that Douthwaite makes is that technology is the supposed solution to social issues. However, near the end of his piece, Douthwaite says that technology is not a real solution and that the “terrible temptation” is that we assume that it will solve our issues (Douthwaite, 32). I would disagree that he thinks tech is a cure all of sorts or that he relies on it completely and assert instead that he thinks humans are the tech problem because we are very passive once there are issues. Furthermore, I think that we all have some form of reliance on tech in our generation whether that be in the form of our cell phones or the cars that we drive. I also would be curious to hear your alternative for what we should do instead of finding a technological fix for environmental problems. What are humans supposed to do as a solution for climate change? I understand that in a perfect world, we would reduce our use of carbon emissions and stop using things that negatively impact the problem. But is this realistic? I have reached an impasse with this question myself but I think that our production of tech will not stop regardless of what we think should happen.