Douthwaite says that technological fixes are necessary to solve social problems, but both of the other authors would almost disagree. While it might be agreeable to say that technology solves many issues, a lot of the time the negative outcome(s) aren’t considered. Many people rush in to fix their issues with a technological solution, but they don’t stop to think about the impact that that solution may have on not only society, but on the world around us. Many technological fixes are like slapping a band-aid on a wound, that is to say that they are only temporary fixes. The solutions we are creating are becoming increasingly dangerous and will only continue to cause more problems than they solve because of this need to make a solution without considering the consequences.
Technological solutions continue to harm us and the environment because we think that things like nature can be improved upon, whereas science has shown us countless times that nature cannot be improved upon. Nature creates its own solutions in the form of natural selection and genetic mutation and, in trying to create our own solutions, humans are constantly introducing new things that have never had the chance to undergo nature’s selective processes. This only serves to unsettle the natural balance of nature and, while nature continues to function, these introduced things continue to unbalance and harm the world around us. Because people can’t stop for a minute to remember that every win comes with a cost, this cycle will continue until there’s nothing left to save. The world’s constant need to slap band-aids on things that maybe don’t need fixing or enhancement continues to damage the world around us, and people are continuing to ignore that because those band-aids, they feel, are a necessity.
While I would agree that nature itself cannot be improved upon, I would disagree on the notion that all technological solutions are bad for the environment. We have a much greater understanding of our effect on our biome and a greater respect for the planet we live on than in the past, and as we learn more, we are much more cautious and prudent in our dealings. Take for example the Environmental Protection Agency (barring its recent sabotage by Scott Pruitt), founded in 1970 and the Food and Drug Administration founded in 1906, at the end of the Industrial Revolution. The IR was a source of a lot of technological fixes (FDA wouldn’t allow cocaine to be used in Coke like it was during the 1800s) that caused many problems, and the fallout from those problems has taught us that we need to be more careful and accountable. These are oversights; construction, production has to go through these regulatory bodies. Technological solutions do not always cause harm: a tool only destroys as a weapon when a human is irresponsible with it.
You state in this blog post that technology is bad for the environment. While I do not disagree with on you this because it is well documented that technological advances are often bad for the environment. However I do not agree that we should not use our scientific minds to advance technology. Technology has the potential to fix a lot of our problems, we just need to be careful with how we implement the technology. If we do not use this gift that humans have it may be beneficial to the environment, but it is almost as if we are giving up on ourselves. I believe that if we use technology in a smart way it can be beneficial to our world.