Save Planet
A strong inscription in my childhood memory, is a non-fiction story of an object called “Plastic”. The exact narrative described it as “the biggest invention of last century”. The heroic account was so loud that most of my childhood discussions were dedicated to this telling theory of technological insurgency. If 18th century was committed to brand new innovations, the next centuries credited to acceleration and spread through industrial revolution. Stress on consumption to promulgate growth was the only corporate slogan though with necessary lexical alteration. The very last thing on the card was concern for nature, which is regarded as very regressive and con-industrialization. Quite obviously industrialization ensured employment, good life style and technology in the reach of common man. Come 21st century, the whole perspective underwent an exhaustive change, flipping the very perception upside down with more focus on preservation than growth.Well, it must be quite evident now about the relevance of plastic in the outset, of course because of the hazards that pose now.
The fact remains that just two centuries of advancement inflicted the kind of extreme harm to this billions years old planet that millions years of human civilization could not. In true sense, we the inhabitants are pushed to the edge, even a slightest unfavorable wind could perpetually diminish us. Global warming, glacier melting, irregular monsoon, harsh climatic conditions, shrunk ozone layers are new demons of this century. Nature was never so harsh or unpredictable before but there is a limit to what our planet can take. Not to blame the scientists, who invested their lifetime for such great contributions, but little did they know their brain child would be so massively abused for commercial interest with complete apathy towards ecosystem.
Every grade increase in electronics integration sparks off a rank increase in global warming. This is the cost we have to pay for faster computing from one scale of integration to another very large scale integration. Also a a large population turned to be an unworthy couch potatoes with the handy gadgets with absolutely no psycho-physical work. Being a technologist myself, it required a lot of mental strength to condemn my bread and butter. But I am too a natural rationalist believe in intellect and deductions to justify everything including the technology itself.
Clubbing science and technology together for the purpose of further introspection and deeper analysis. Like any other evolving study all the theories presented so far are rather incidental bye-products than the conclusive final output. Every day we discover new things that denounce an established theory. After decades of usage a new study reveals that a particular medicine suffers from some specific side-effects. Similarly, side-effects of a technology comes to light after such a long time of use that the same would have actually caused serious damage to the case. Lets take the example of another colossal creation, the cell phone. Inadvertently, the cell phone effects a lot of health hazards notably from the radiations from the towers as well as the handsets. The impact could be as devastating as brain tumors and other critical ailments including cancer. The hazardous waste that the last decade has produced is sufficient enough to knock down the whole galaxy let alone our tiny planet. The bottom-line is rather emphatically clear on the intrinsic price of technology but the question is, ‘Are we all collectively ready to pay the price?’.
With technology in our blood now, this is absolutely meaningless to discuss about discarding technology. With or without technology the apocalypse is for sure, and we are far off now to rewind. Nobody wants the next generation to inherit the legacy of a spurious ecosystem nearing its natural ending. An orthodox view reminds me of the golden era of our civilization in the medieval period. With supreme command over knowledge of different departments of science they still stayed away from misusing technology in the manner as we did. The commandment always stressed upon preservation rather than exploitation. May be the benefits accrued fared miserably against the cost sustained. Our little concern now could ensure a safe and secured planet for the future.Every industrial revolution must see a matching investment in green revolution to counterbalance the negative impact. The corporate plans to aggressively promote a technology should be reinforced by a fairly aggressive approach to manage the technology debt that would be left behind.
After all technology is civilization.
Bijay's Blog 