Techno-Ecology and Eco-Technology

Modern industries were quick to jump on the new biological revolution that enabled genetic manipulation of corn crops. They did so short-sightedly and without regard to the possible long term or possible indirect consequences of human interference in the genetic transmission of biological information--the coding of life itself. They did so only in the selfish desire of capitalizing on a new form of technology. Genetic manipulation is a clear and stark example of the effect that modern scientific technology is having upon the natural ecology of the earth--at many levels and in many different ways. The history of capitalist development reveals that most of it has been by definition short-sighted because it was always based simply and only on terms of rapid and immediate profit-maximization--or rather a strategy of the nearest possible, short-term gains.

Modern technologies indeed create and foster their own kinds of ecology on the earth, as many otherwise feral species of life are forced to adapt to the new human-made conditions imposed on their natural habitats or else pass rapidly to extinction by habitat loss and extreme resource competition. These new human made ecologies prove usually to be not very adaptive in the long term--they tend to have destructive and imbalancing consequences for natural ecologies in the larger framework and the suites of species that normally make their homes within these regional contexts.

Eco-Technology can be defined as the alternative technologies, such as the primary institutions of production, that promote more sustainable large scale adaptations of the human species on earth, or at the very least are less destructive of an eco-cultural orientation than are the currently predominant fossil-fuel based technologies. These primary alternative institutions are basically solar-powered, either directly or indirectly, along with a host of spin-off technologies that are derivable and exclusively dependent upon these alternative energy resources. The information revolution has made this new kind of technology not only more possible, but potentially even more efficacious and even more profitable than traditional-styled technologies!

As Buckminster Fuller was fond of remarking--information is anti-entropic, and if we are to understand the synergism of an alternative system of basic and advanced technology, then it must be understood from the standpoint of its structural-functional integration derived from information technologies and the possibilities that this new kind of cybernetic integration creates.

Eco-technologies have a primary derivative source--solar energy--either directly or indirectly utilized by a variety of means. Upon this general source of energy, technologies that are efficient and ecologically efficacious are elaborated as viable alternatives to the common forms available today. The wide-scale adoption and development of these alternative primary institutions sets up a new foundation for alternative development that is outside of the present system and yet remains complementary to that system.

The challenge is the development of an alternative eco-technological infrastructure that is complementary to the existing fossil-fuel economy. Many of these alternative technologies have been around for a long time, but the justification for their lack of development has been the availability of less expensive alternatives and the high cost of their development.

This is only partly true, and disguises the real issue that has been involved in the promotion of alternative eco-technologies. The large oil companies and derivative companies of automobile and truck manufactures would not want forms of competition to enter their lucrative market place that might in the long run undermine their own profits and profitability. In fact, in the long run, if properly designed, eco-technologies may actually be more efficient and less expensive than the current petro-chemical based industries.

The promotion of these alternative technologies does require some rethinking and rewiring of the system--old money will die and new money will be born. Even more, it requires a general receptiveness and willingness of current socio-political systems to adopt these kinds of programs. If the new alternative technologies can be cultivated and allowed to rise to the fore, then the old Industries of oil and coal combustion would become eventually relatively limited and specialed industries--a few functions accomplished more efficiently by gas or other forms of petro-chemical combustion than otherwise, hence being irreplaceable by alternatives.

The promise of these programs promoting alternative development is that, relatively speaking, they are non-destructive of the natural environment, and produce far fewer harmful side afffects that the curren state of technology. They would be designed for the long-run, to run on a regular or continuous basis without the need for constant inputs of huge amounts of coal or oil. Because on average they would tend to be long lasting, steady and relatively reliable, many of the issues that are contemporary to the petrol-chemical--cost of gas at the pump, for example-- industry would eventually simply become irrelevant.

The focal foundation of techno-ecology is the elaboration of solar and gravity powered technologies, and the advanced application of these technologies to the viable and economical solution of practical problems in the world. Spinoff technologies would also be forth coming from promotion of this development. Furthermore, new development based on these technologies can be directly applied to accomplishing scientific objectives that have not otherwise been obtained.

Alternative development will succeed in rendering global social organization more complex and occupationally differentiated--the structural dynamics of pan-human social order would take on new dimensions and new orders of magnitude as greater amounts of power become available to more people at less cost and greater net efficiency. It may also remove some of the foundation stones that currently influence militarism and current assymmetries in the world order--competition for access and control over basic energy resources, for example.

The real challenges faced by alternative techno-ecological development is not its cost-effectiveness, but rather the organized resistance it will receive from many super-powerful lobbies and private interests who mandate government policies and manipulate public awareness and opinion. But these challenges can be effectively met, and in time, their resistance will wither away in the face of a growing global receptivity and demand for cheaper sources of power and the by-products and technological spin-offs of these sources.

The sooner the human race gets unhooked on fossil-fuel consumption as their primary source of power, and becomes hooked on alternative solar sources, then the sooner the foundations for world peace and for pan-human development can be better secured in the world. In the meantime, we must concern ourselves with dealing with a world of our own making, but not completely of our own choosing.

For such alternative technology and development to occur, it is clear that governments on all levels must become more cooperative and willing as participants in this effort--promotion of such development will entail the extension and integration of regions world-wide that have little to do with political boundaries, much as the information revolution based upon the Internet has had little to do with national boundaries of culture, language or communications.

At the same time, governments alone cannot be relied upon to assume the initiate for beginning new programs of alternative development--the people themselves, as global consumers and producers, must assume the initiative and put the real power in their own hands.