Technological Change and the
Environment
Technological Change and the
Environment
• The social creation of new technologies
transforms both societies and the natural
world upon which human societies depend.
• Therefore, in order for us to understand the
dynamic relationship between social systems
and ecosystems, we need to understand the
role played by technology in shaping that
relationship.
What is Technology?
• Technology is how we make “stuff” and do
“stuff.”
• Organizing and reorganizing social relations to
nature.
• Produced by social actors and institutions.
• Specific social groups make it their business to
move technological change in specific
directions and for specific purposes
What is Technology?
• Ex: classroom is, in part, a technology for
making or doing stuff.
– Social relations
– Physical relations
– Relationship to nature
What is Technology?
• Technology is a series of entanglements with
social systems and ecosystems, close and far,
obvious and hidden.
• All technology represents a series of
relationships between you and others and
between you and the natural world.
• Those relationships are not random.
What is Technology?
• Relationships
– Reflect the social origins of the technologies
– The goals of those who designed the technologies,
– The interests of those who require to request you
to use the technologies, and
– The ways in which society has been organized to
use and change nature.
Technological Change
• Various phases or periods of development of
technology
• Lewis Mumford (Technics and Civilization)
– Three distinct eras of modern technological
development
• Paleotechnic: wood as the primary material & the use of
moving water and wind as the primary energy sources
• Eotechnic: iron as the primary material & the use of coal
to generate steam as the primary energy source
• Neotechnic: steel as the primary material & the use of
electricity as the primary energy source.
The Agricultural Revolution
• Prior to the technology of agriculture, human
societies were primarily organized for a
hunting and gathering survival strategy.
• The technology of agriculture allowed humans
to modify their local ecosystems to meet their
food needs, rather than modifying their
societies (through migration) to meet local
ecosystem conditions.
The Agricultural Revolution
• In a real sense, the power balance between
environment and society was shifted toward
greater human agency and greater ecosystem
malleability
– Humans cleared portions of land
– Selected species of plants
– Domesticated animals
• Pastures were cleared, ecosystems
transformed, and species gradually modified
to serve human goals.
The Agricultural Revolution
• Settlement
– Building of permanent structures
– Accumulation of material possessions
– Technology increases reduced labour requirements
producing a “labour surplus.”
– Large-scale irrigation and other large scale construction
– Complex social organization in governance and the
production and distribution of a wider variety of goods
and services
– Labour surpluses also allowed for the creation of
standing armies
• Many features of both human social organizations
and their relationship to ecosystems actually stem
from the technology of agriculture.
The Industrial Revolution
• The industrialization of production generated
a vast array of social changes
– Creation of new classes
– Formation of industrial cities
– Societal dependence on enormous inputs of
nonrenewable resources, particular fossil fuels
– Technological changes increased production and
the growing transformation of natural ecosystems
– Increasing “withdrawals” and “additions.”
The Technological Trajectory
• Both revolutions … transformed the relationship
between social systems and ecosystems.
• Enormous increase in the incentive and capacity
to adjust natural systems to meet social needs,
rather than adjusting social systems to meet
naturally occurring ecosystem realities
• But … where is our technological trajectory
headed? Why? Who and what determines the
path of technological innovation? And what are
the alternative pathways?
Social Institutions and Technological
Decision-Making
• Social institutions pursuing specific social
goals largely control the progress and
direction of technological change … reflective
of the power and the political and economic
interests of the social institutions that control
the process.
• The main social institutions are:
– Universities
– States
• basic research enhance military power
• Economic competitiveness
Science, Technological Innovation, and
Power
• Technological innovation is greatly influenced
by a relatively small number of decision
makers in governments and corporations who
establish research priorities, provide research
facilitates, and determine the distribution of
funding.
• These decision-making processes are generally
unavailable for public input and public
influence.
Science, Technological Innovation, and
Power
• We must live with the technological
consequences in terms of
– products that are and are not available
– Technologies that do and do not exist,
– Employment opportunities that are created and
destroyed, and
– Public health and ecological impacts that are
generated
• But generally denied a role in determining
those consequences.
The Myth of Progress
• Research takes a natural course determined by free
inquiry and the evolution of ideas and that
technologies are touted along a linear progression
where one development automatically follows
from another.
• No institutional agency in the technological
trajectory.
• This myth of technological neutrality and the
ideology of capitalist ethic (private gain yields
public good) produces complacency in regard to
research and development on the part of the
public
The Democratization of Technological
Innovation
• If we are to seriously pursue a more
environmentally sound relationship between
social systems and ecosystems, we may find it
useful to make the technological innovation
processes subject to democratic controls
– in which the potential social and ecological impacts of
technologies can be assessed by informed publics, and
– under conditions in which citizens are empowered to
determine the goals of research and development,
– the prioritization and funding of that research,
– and the manner in which technologies will be
implemented or prohibited.