By Jim Thomas, ETC Group

A guest blog in the Alternative Perspectives on Technology Innovation series

For a fresh perspective on how to do technology governance consider starting somewhere else. I suggest York Castle in Northern England – a stark stone tower from the thirteenth century.

It was here in 1812 that the English state first executed fifteen men for the newly established crime of machine-breaking. They were Luddites – the original kind: artisan weavers who saw the factory system as an assault on their livelihoods and communities. At the time England was convulsed by the ‘machine question’ – with fiery debates in parliament and hundreds of fiery attacks on cloth mills by followers of the mythical Ned Ludd. As the first industrial revolution gathered steam, literally, the political class made a deliberate decision to side with the new industrialists. 12,000 Soldiers were deployed to quell the Luddite uprising – more than were abroad fighting Napoleon. The Frame Breaking Act made Luddism punishable by death and in time the word Luddite itself was transformed into a term of contempt and abuse that lasted all the way to 21^st century science debates. Its fair to say the Luddites lost – big time.

I should admit right now that I’m a big fan of the Luddites – Not that its much fun supporting an extinct political movement. Unlike sports teams there’s neither merchandise to buy nor Facebook groups to join (not unless you count this: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ye-Luddites/121981285761?v=info ). But I like Ned Ludd and his gang for two reasons.

Firstly I think they were right in ways they didn’t even know at the time. Our contemporary crises of climate change, overproduction and industrial pollution trace back in obvious ways to the industrial revolution as do the emergence of  urban and labour problems that flowed from the factory system and the urbanization that it gave rise to. The new cloth factories made possible a level of demand that justified establishing cotton plantations and a vicious slave trade setting in motion cycles of violence and racism that still persist today. Did the industrial revolution also bring benefits to society – of course it did although those benefits remain very unevenly distributed. Did the Luddites know they were fighting the roots of future racism. No – but their instincts were good.

Secondly I admire the Luddites for their success (albeit brief) in creating  a large-scale truly popular debate about emerging technologies. The widespread uprising of 1811-16 was more than just a wave of hysterics. Popular geek culture casts a ‘Luddite’ as a technologically inept dunce, fearful of change. Historical accounts reveal nothing of the sort. Real Luddites were adept users of complex hand weaving looms. They often espoused nuanced views on the technological revolution happening around them. They were not uniformly anti-technology: Their grievances, as recorded in song and declarations , were specifically with technologies that were “harmful to the common good” – as good a standard as any against which to asses technological appropriateness.  In their night time raids they would break some mechanical frames that they considered unjust while leaving others untouched that they considered benign. They recognised technological power as political, entwined with monopoly power and responsible for a lowering of standards and production of shoddy goods. They even practiced a radical form of democratic  technology assessment that we haven’t seen the like of since: dragging bulky mechanical looms to the market place to hold public trials in which all the community could pass judgement on the new machines – a public consultation process of the most inclusive kind.

I was once involved in organizing such a Luddite-style technology trial – at York Castle no less. A group of fellow activists dragged a motor car to the old stone tower and we set up public court, inviting bystanders to testify for or against the impact of the internal combustion engine on all our lives. Road kill, asthma, community destruction and climate change were weighed against the increased mobility and economic opportunities provided by four fast wheels. Everyone who happened to pass by became the jury.  On balance the car was found guilty of being ‘harmful to the common good’ but received a lighter sentence than the Luddites had on the same spot. This symbolic exercise in popular assessment of technology was exactly 100 years too late to influence the relevant innovation policy. Nonetheless it set me thinking: What if we weren’t too late? What if we could drag emerging technologies into a modern court of public deliberation and democratic oversight. What might that look like?

I’ve been turning over that question for about 15 years now while active in global debates on emerging technologies –  particularly GM Crops, Nanotechnology, Synthetic Biology and  Geo-engineering – Debates in which I’ve encountered the term Luddite, meant as a slur, more times than I care to count. Language like this tumbles carelessly out of history .. but I find the parallels striking. Once again we are in the early phases of a new industrial revolution. Once again powerful technologies (Converging Technologies ) are physically remaking and sometimes disintegrating our societies. Those  of us in civil society carrying out bit-part campaigns, issuing press releases and launching legal challenges are in a sense attempting to drag technology governance away from the darkness of narrow expert committees and into the sunny court of public deliberation for a broader hearing.. It seems a perfectly reasonable and democratic urge. But there’s got to be a better and more systematic way to do that?

So far I’ve found three sets of proposals that might begin to put technology oversight into the open and back in the hands of a wider public:

• Public Engagement: Citizens Juries, Knowledge exchanges, People’s Commissions.

No don’t yawn. I grant you that science policy types (and the rest of us) have every reason to groan when they hear the term “Public engagement in Science”. Like other  empty buzz phrases (“sustainable development” and “corporate social responsibility” come to mind) its too easily appropriated – but there is still (just about) some value in imagining and practicing what actual involvement mechanisms we could craft to enable a more democratic form of innovation governance.  Citizen’s Juries in places as diverse as Andra Pradesh, Mali and Brazil have enabled marginalized groups such as farmers to at least take a place alongside seed companies and biotech giants in policy processes. While People’s Commissions (investigation processes run by citizens groups) may get short shrift from a condescending political establishment yet can often exhibit excellent foresight, drawing on sources of grassroots knowledge  that closetted self-referential science committees might never open up to. These days my faith in public engagement  is waning having watched several governments employ such processes as a thinly disguised public relations ploy or to tie up the energies of civil society. Unless a public engagement process has a clear promise by those in power that they will listen, respond and demonstrably act on reccomendations its likely to lose the interest of the participants too.

• Global Oversight: ICENT.

ICENT stands for the International Convention for the Evaluation of New Technologies – a UN level body for foresighting emerging technology trends and then applying a wide-ranging assessment process that will consider the social, environmental and justice implications of the innovation being scrutinised. It doesn’t exist yet and maybe it never will but at ETC Group we have dedicated a lot of time to imagining what such a body could look like (we even have some nifty organagrams – see pg 36-40 of this) For example there would be bodies scanning the technological horizon and others making a rough reckoning of whether a new technology needed a strong oversight framework or not. Others tasked with bringing in a broad range of knowledge (what do the indigenous folks say?) or identifying exactly the right place in the system of global governance to begin regulatory moves. At a time when tech governance is several decades late each time we find a new platform emerging (Nanotech? Synthetic Biology? Geoengineering?) An ICENT–like body could maybe get international machinery in gear a bit quicker – ideally before industrial interests have already written those technologies into next quarter’s earning sheets and are shipping them to market.

• Popular assessment : Technopedia?

The only governance and regulations that work are those where somebody is paying attention – so  rather than hide technology assessment in rarefied committees why not hand it to the wisdom of the crowds. Wikipedia may not be the most perfectly accurate source of all knowledge but it is comprehensive, up to date and flexible and provides an interesting model. Actually Wikipedia entries are often not a bad place to start if you want to suss out the societal and environmental issues raised by the zeitgeist regarding new technologies. How about a dedicated wiki site for collaborative monitoring and judging of emerging technologies? Such a site could be structured so that, unlike the halls of power, marginal voices have a space and are welcome. A grassroots army of  volunteer technology assessors could help fill out the questions that Brussels or Washington never asks: What is the feminist take on this technology? How does it impact indigenous or disabled groups? What livelihood issues does this raise for the poor? Will the global commodities trade be affected? Perhaps an extended social media approach to technology assessment could convene online juries, host global conference calls and draft peoples reports for input into policy deliberations.

Don’t get me wrong.. approaches like these are not panaceas .. Adopt them all and some of us in civil society  might still feel there are a few metaphorical mechanical frames that would still need breaking. For example I’m not sure a modern day Ned Ludd would be content to spend his whole time writing wiki entries.

Then again, at least he might participate in his own facebook group…

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Jim Thomas is a Research Programme Manager and Writer with the ETC Group based in Montreal, Canada. His background is in communications, writing on emerging technologies and international campaigning.

Formerly an organiser with grassroots direct action movements in Europe and North America, Jim spent seven years with  Greenpeace International as a campaigner on food and genetic  engineering issues before joining ETC Group in 2002. Jim organised the  first international meeting on the societal impacts of Nanotechnology (held in the European Parliament), speaks around the world on  emerging technology issues and has authored several reports, chapters and press  articles on Biotechnology, Nanotechnology, Synthetic Biology and  GeoEngineering.  He writes a regular ‘Tech Reckoning’ column for The Ecologist Magazine exploring the  politics of next generation technologies.

Trained as a historian to look back at the history of technology, Jim is now proccupied with the future of technology. Once upon a time he was an award winning slam poet but then he had children…

ETC Group have a blog too…

By Tim Jackson, University of Surrey, UK

A guest blog in the Alternative Perspectives on Technology Innovation series

Are we a clever species or a stupid one?  It’s not a trivial question. Put our society in the dock with a jury of our future peers and the verdict would be far from clear cut.

Exhibit A, m’lud: the leaf-blower. Here is an instrument of profoundly meaningless intent, powered by increasingly scarce fossil fuels. Pumping pollution directly into the atmosphere, the modern leaf-blower has a power rating of around 2,500 watts.  Its task: to chase leaves into hidden corners, from which, in the course of a couple of days with the onset of the next cold front they will be blown onto the streets again by the wind. But that’s OK, because we can send out the workforce a second time, ears muffled ineffectively against the relentless din, to repeat the task. And guess what? These adventures in mindless pollution will contribute positively to the Gross Domestic Product of the economy. Over and against the humble broom, you can clearly see how great an advance this innovation represents in the progress of a clever humanity.

Hm yes…

Exhibit B: the cardio-pulmonary bypass (CPB) pump.  Conceptualised by Robert Hooke in the 17^th Century, developed by Dr Clarence Dennis and his team at the University of Minnesota Hospital and first used during heart surgery in 1951, the CPB pump oxygenates and circulates blood mechanically round the body, while bypassing the heart and lungs. This procedure ‘perfuses’ oxygen to the other limbs and organs (crucially the brain), while allowing the surgeon to work on the heart or lungs in a bloodless environment.  Heart surgery as we know it would be next to impossible without it. The pump uses around 5 watts in operation – less than 0.2% of the power of the leaf-blower.

OK. I know what you’re going to say. It’s not a fair comparison.  Eight hours a day blowing leaves around isn’t comparable with 2 hours under bypass to save someone’s life. You just happen to be someone who likes sweeping leaves with a broom. And besides, your son was born with a ventricular sepal defect (VSD) which would have led to an early and unpleasant death if he’d not undergone surgery at the age of six months to correct it.

Both things happen to be true. In a world where reflective simplicity is at a premium and connection to nature mediated by too much in the way of noise and machinery, I am nowhere more content than a spending a couple of hours on a November Sunday playing leaf chase with a broom in my hand.  And then a few months later, spreading the composted mulch to fertilise my too often neglected garden. I have a sense of profound respect bordering on affection for those who do this sort of thing for a living. Personally I’d pay them a lot more, but that’s beside the point.

And as for the heart thing, I admit to profound terror at the prospect of having a surgeon bust open my son’s chest and tinker with his heart.  And to being only mildly comforted by the fact that, when he stood to shake my hand, the surgeon turned out to be 5 foot tall with the smallest and most careful hands I’d ever seen. If anyone was going to sew a piece of gortex into an infant chest I was glad it was this man. I may have been terrified. But would I rather it hadn’t been an option?  Absolutely not.  So if it were simply a comparison between these two innovations, perhaps I’d better be excused from jury service.

Even so, I can’t help feeling there might be some criteria through which we could and should judge the value of such innovations. Their contribution to human wellbeing might be one of them. Their sustainability in the face of finite resources and a fragile ecology might be another. Their potential for misuse or accidental harm another. Their impact on our working life and sense of fulfillment yet another.

And even if these are not the right criteria to judge by, are we really so sure that there are no such criteria that might be applied when our case comes to trial?  So sure in fact, that we’re prepared to prize innovation for innovation’s sake forsaking all others for as long as we all shall live?  So sure that we’re happy to defer the value of innovation to a single metric judgement based on monetary value?  So sure that in pursuit of the good life, we’re happy to favour innovation repeatedly over tradition (and conservation)?   So sure that, as I’ve argued extensively elsewhere, we’re prepared to structure our entire economies around the continual production and consumption of novelty?  For better or worse. Come hell or high water.

At the end of the day, of course, Exhibits A and B aren’t excatly to be compared against each other in a straightforward manner. Rather they’ve been called into play as evidence at a mock trial regarding humanity’s stupidity.  All I’m saying is, I can’t help feeling they’re likely to be balanced against each other during the jury’s deliberation.

Exhibit C, m’lud: an economy predicated on relentless growth – fuelled by thoughtless, unguided, socially disruptive, ecologically-damaging innovation.

If only I could rest my case.

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Tim Jackson is Professor of Sustainable Development at the University of Surrey and author of Prosperity without Growth – economics for a finite planet (Earthscan 2009)

By George Kimbrell, International Center for Technology Assessment, and the Center for Food Safety

A guest blog in the Alternative Perspectives on Technology Innovation series

Andrew asked us to write about “how technological innovation should contribute to life in the 21^st century.”  Technological innovation is often blindly referred to as “progress.”  The question is — progress towards what?

We live in the age of technology.  In past generations, most people spent the majority of their time in nature, and then in later years more often in social settings.  In the modern world, most of us spend an ever-increasing amount of time in an interconnected web of machines.  I’d like to say I’m writing this on a riverside, but unfortunately I’m not – I’m in my office typing on my laptop, with my email open on a different web browser.

What currently drives this technological innovation, this technological bubble that defines our age?  In modern society, self-interest, greater productivity, greater consumption, the laws of supply and demand and the commoditization of the world are all drivers.  This economic system, which has now succeeded in global hegemony, dictates all our social interactions. Far from being a natural state of being, it is of course only as old as the United States (Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations was published in 1776) and not based on any natural law. In early societies, the market system was never the method by which basic societal problems were addressed; rather the marketplace was delegated only a limited role by our ancestors compared to their cultural and religious beliefs and social patterns.  Nature (not to mention labor), although treated as such, is not a commodity. Nature does not respond to supply and demand. The old-growth forests of the Pacific Northwest will not speed up their growth rate to address increased demand.  More fundamentally, the natural world has intrinsic, incalculable value above and far beyond “market values”.  Even the U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA) recognizes this truth, in that it prohibits the extermination of species no matter how lucrative the activity  that is causing the killing.

Not only are the current dominant economic systems and their intertwined technological systems at odds with the ecological cycles of the natural world, but they are also actively and quickly eviscerating the planet.  We are exponentially reducing the earth’s capacities in every natural realm: land, air, water, and everything in between, through ozone depletion, acid rain, species extinction, deforestation, and desertification.  By commodifying nature to match our own systems we are threatening the planets’ survival and our own.  Global warming illustrates this conclusion best: Our industrial technologies have created the first global environmental crisis in human history.

We now face what is known as the technological dilemma—the “developed” portion of the world’s population has become dependent on the technological environment. Yet the same technologies that support life for the richest part of human population are threatening the very viability of life on Earth.  Even former President George W. Bush said we are “addicted to oil.”  And this addiction to these unhealthy systems of production is destroying our world.  To paraphrase and apply the wisdom of Rowlf the Dog from the Muppets to market-based mass consumerism: we can’t live with our technologies, and we can’t imagine living without them.

These are not new revelations.  And there are really only two options.  Forty years ago, writers and leaders began urging that we institute “appropriate technologies” in sync with the cycles of nature, rather than the mega-global-techno-systems causing planetary and human peril.  Attorneys and policymakers have succeeded in passing and utilizing laws that would limit the impacts of capital and industrial systems, like the ESA.  Scientists began to develop more holistic visions of their vocations.  This approach/option is a step toward addressing economic development within the context of rather than at the expense of our global environment and the society which depends upon it.

But others too have come to the conclusion that our current technology is not compatible with life.  They have foreseen the growing conflict between globalization, mass consumption, and the laws of nature.  However, their solution to the dilemma is very different.  Rather than change our economics and technology to better comport with the needs of living things, corporations and governments began to engineer life itself to better accommodate the market system and the technologies upon which it is predicated.  Ignoring the constraints of the natural world, living systems are to be remade, engineered at the genetic and molecular level to further the necessities of the technological age.

What’s the result of this worldview?  You probably see where this is going.  Genetic engineering, or recombinant DNA technology, is seen as the tool by which we can alter life at the genetic level to better fit industrial production systems and become a technological commodity.  Cloning is seen as the tool by which we can emulate the factory model of identical production for life forms.  Rather than redesigning industrial agriculture to fit the animal’s natural behavior, we are redesigning the animal to fit industrial agriculture.  Because patent control spurred production for products, we must now patent plants, animals, and human genes and cells.  Nanotechnology is a means by which we can control and manipulate matter at the atomic and molecular level to enhance industrial processes.  Lastly, synthetic biology is a means by which we combine several of these tools to create and design entirely new life forms to perform our industrial tasks. Even Dr. Frankenstein was cautious enough to not make his creature a mate; “synthetic biologists,” on the other hand, want their creatures to reproduce before systems are in place to control them.

Got environmental problems? Global warming does not to be addressed by stopping harmful greenhouse gas emissions and putting in place strictures to address systemic problems; instead, we should geo-engineer the planet to ameliorate the problem, or genetically engineer plants to be more drought- tolerant or trees to grow faster.  Chemical pollution causing environmental and health hazards? We do not need to reduce our use of harmful pesticides; instead, we should engineer production plants to be immune to them.  Pigs and chickens not amenable to horrific close-confinement factory farming?  Don’t encourage organic and humane farming and change the systems by making industrial agriculture internalize the true costs of its production; instead,  genetically alter the animals to withstand extreme confinement and diseases that proliferate therein.  Wild salmon runs dying out?  Don’t remove the dams and stop the pollution, farm them and genetically re-engineer them to grow faster in crowded, polluted ponds.

So where does that leave us?  Well, first, we must recognize and address the underlying philosophy and economy that drives and controls technological innovation. An order of magnitude in change is required; we must institute a paradigm-shift to a system of governance and life that is based on coexistence with and benefit to natural systems: An earth-centered system.  As Thomas Berry explains in The Dream of Earth, we must move from the technological age to the ecological age.  We must begin treating ourselves and the natural world as part of an interconnected web; stop thinking in straight lines and start thinking in circles.  “Progress” must include the natural as well as the human world, encouraging mutually enhancing human-earth relationships.  Human technologies should function in an integral relationship with earth technologies, not in a despotic manner.  Nature, over hundreds of millions of years and through an infinite number of experiments, worked out ecosystems that were already flourishing abundantly when we came to exist.  How can technological innovation help us determine how we can best be present in this context?  Modern society must treat life and the natural world as the spiritual force it is.  There must be a mystique of rivers if we are ever going to restore the purity of our rivers.  This is not a new idea, it is actually the oldest.  Is this an idealized vision? Perhaps, but it’s a considerably less naive world vision that that which claims we can sustain our current industrial system.

Can technological innovation help us get there?  If it changes the course current path we’re going down, if it helps stop the bleeding.  If it breaks away from being driven by corporate profits, and instead helps spread knowledge, wisdom, and awareness.  If it helps us flesh out and establish an earth-centered system to replace the current oppressive paradigm.  We must evolve our technological systems so that they are democratic and responsive to us, that we are responsible for them, and so that they comport with nature and with life forms on the earth.  We can dust off the old ways and make them the new again, making them more seductive and more logical than our current destructive ways. Only with these changes will technological innovation properly serve the planet and enhance, as well as extend, a meaningful human experience.

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George A. Kimbrell is a staff attorney for the nonprofit Center for Food Safety (CFS) and its parent organization International Center for Technology Assessment (ICTA), based in San Francisco, California.  He practices environmental and administrative law with a focus on legal and policy issues related to new and emerging technologies.  For ICTA, he works on matters involving nanotechnology, biotechnology and climate change technologies.  For CFS, he covers genetically engineered food and crops, organic standards, factory farming and aquaculture.

Mr. Kimbrell received his J.D. magna cum laude from Lewis and Clark Law School and has a B.A. from the College of William and Mary.  Prior to joining ICTA and CFS, he completed a clerkship on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

I do not here officially represent my organizations or clients.  The views discussed herein owe much to the ideas and writings of others.  For more detailed discussion of many of these issues, please see, inter alia, Andrew Kimbrell, Salmon Economics (and other lessons), Twenty-Third Annual E.F. Schumacher Lectures, Stockbridge, Mass. (Oct 2003).

By Richard Worthington, Loka Institute

A guest blog in the Alternative Perspectives on Technology Innovation series

My first scholarly engagement with environmental politics was an honor’s thesis written while I was an undergraduate at Berkeley in the early 1970s.  Back then, the term “environmentalist” was frequently deployed to profile someone held to be a naïve, irresponsible and possibly dangerous enemy of the American Way of Life.

The simple fact, however, is that concerns about environmental decay and support for environmental improvement have been consistently voiced by most Americans since the 1970s.  The strategy of branding environmentalists as extremists was therefore eroded by the enduring reality that most people who are active in this arena were and are ordinary folks who are confronted by extraordinary problems.

Seeing that they could not beat environmental sentiments, by the 1990s many industry leaders decided to embrace them.  Their opponents quickly invented terms such as  “greenwash” in order to frame industry’s new environmentalism as a cynical ploy, but in terms of actual outcomes, the polluters clearly won.  More than moving toward ecological balance, the Clinton-Gore years were notable for privatization, deregulation, and revving up industrial growth and consumption.  This despite the publication of Al Gore’s eloquent and even radical Earth in the Balance only a few months before his election as Vice-President. The Bush years only amplified the familiar refrain of growth and conquest (of nature and other countries).

The problem for growth-first  advocates is that ecological disruption and its consequences won’t go away.  Material circumstances thus continue to drive broad-based environmental concern, while the most powerful interests in global society have only begun to talk about action to address the imbalance between the technosphere and the ecosphere.  I write this in Copenhagen, where the largest environmental convention in history is attempting to grapple with the real prospect that the quality of life everywhere is imperiled by a human-induced alteration of the climate.  Practically no one here is questioning the legitimacy of climate concerns, and just about everyone is hailing a new green economy, yet expectations of significant progress toward this goal are low.

What’s nanotechnology got to do with this?  As it turns out, nanotech is central in a discourse where a third framing of “environment” and “ecology” has evolved.  In this version, the system of science-driven innovation that is now at the center of global economic growth strategies is itself considered an ecosystem, even though plants, animals (other than humans) and the other elements normally associated with the term “ecology” are nowhere to be found.

I first encountered this move to conflate new technology and ecology during the 1980s in the works of conservative political economist George Gilder.  Gilder was enthralled with digital information technology, which he credited with delivering “a billion Asians” from penury (in “Telecosm:  The Bandwidth Revolution”, Forbes ASAP, 1994, p. 117).   Perhaps more noteworthy was Gilder’s rhetorical move to describe the digital world in ecological terms.

“More ecosystem than machine, cyberspace is a bioelectronic environment that is literally universal:  It exists everywhere there are telephone wires, coaxial cables, fiber-optic lines or electromagnetic waves.  This environment is ‘inhabited’ by knowledge…existing in electronic form” (Magna Carta for the Knowledge Age, 1994, prepared for the Progress and Freedom Foundation).

Nano has now replaced digital in this genre.  Here’s how no less a figure than Mihail C. Roco, Senior Advisor for Nanotechnology to the United States National Science Foundation, describes the system for governing nanotechnology:

“IRGC (International Risk Governance Council) views the stakeholder groups involved [in nanogovernance] as operating within a dynamic ecosystem of interlocking dependencies.  The task is therefore to create an adaptive, collaborative environment enabling different parties to play their part in the ecosystem” (ISO Focus, “Guest View“, April 2007, p.6).

Here, a distinctively human artifice is represented as a natural system.

The narrative of ecology and society that now includes nanotech thus goes like this:  at the dawn of the contemporary environmental movement, industry leaders equated environmentalism with extremism in an attempt to undermine its legitimacy.  After this tactic had run its course, they proclaimed their own environmental concern in order to obfuscate a largely unchanged agenda of industrial growth at all costs.  Now, the system of technology-driven economic growth that currently has nanotechnology as its poster child is depicted to actually be an ecosystem.

People and nature, of course, are inextricably interdependent, so there is a sound basis for including human society in a concept of ecology.  But if the distinction between non-human nature and the product of human endeavors is erased from the idea of ecology, our ability to distinguish a manufactured human society from one in which people and nature exist in a dynamic balance will be undermined.  Should it come to pass, this scenario could well make us wish for the good old days when “environmentalist” was an epithet.

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Rick Worthington is involved in nanotechnology issues by way of volunteer collaborations at  the Loka Institute, whose mission is “Making research, science and technology responsive to democratically-decided social and environmental concerns” (for a summary of and links to Loka’s involvement in nanotech, visit http://www.loka.org/FedNanoPolicy.html).  He is also Professor of Politics and chairs the Program in Public Policy Analysis at Pomona College in Claremont, California.

Rick has written extensively on science, technology and the environment (including in a book, Rethinking Globalization:  Production, Politics, Actions, Peter Lang Publishing, 2000), and currently is U.S. Coordinator of World Wide Views on Global Warming.  WWViews is the first-ever global citizen policy consultation, held September 26, 2009.  In it, nearly 4,000 citizens in 38 countries studied and debated the issues now on the table in Copenhagen (December 7 – 18, 2009) at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (www.wwviews.org).

By Richard Owen, University of Westminster, UK

A guest blog in the Alternative Perspectives on Technology Innovation series

This article was first published in Planet Earth, an award-winning magazine funded and published by the UK Natural Environment Research Council (NERC).  It is reproduced here with permission from Planet Earth and Richard Owen.

In 1956 one of my favourite films hit the big screen: a classic piece of science fiction called Forbidden Planet. It tells the story of a mission in the 23rd century to a distant planet, to find out what has happened to an earlier scientific expedition. On arrival the crew encounter the sole survivors, Dr Morbius and his daughter: the rest of the expedition has mysteriously disappeared. Morbius lives in a world of dazzling technology, the like of which the crew have never seen.

He had discovered the remnants of a highly advanced civilisation, the Krell, and an astonishing machine they had developed, the Plastic Educator. This could radically enhance their intellect, allowing them to materialise any thought, to develop new and wondrous technologies. Morbius had done the same. But something terrible had happened to the Krell: not only did the Plastic Educator develop their intellect, it also unwittingly heightened the darker sides of their subconscious minds, ‘Monsters from the Id’. In one night of savage destruction they were taken over by their own dark forces, leaving their advanced society extinct.

Now I’m not going to tell you how it ends; you’ll have to watch the film yourself. And it would be fanciful to say that we are heading for the same fate as the Krell. But it is fair to say that our relationship with innovation can at times be troublesome, with consequences that can on occasion be global in nature.

You may have heard for example of a clever financial innovation called ‘securitisation’: you may also know that this has helped leave a legacy of toxic debt that all of us will play a part in cleaning up. This is dwarfed by the legacy that our relationship with fossil fuel burning technology will leave not only for our children, but also for their grandchildren. These examples show that it is important that we innovate, to drive our economy, to improve our lifestyles and wellbeing, to find solutions to the big issues we face – but it is critical that we innovate responsibly. And public demands to be responsible, to avoid excessive risks, go beyond banks: they also apply to research.

In his inaugural speech in January Barack Obama called for a ‘new era of responsibility’. I want to know what this new era will look like. For a number of years I worked for a regulator, the Environment Agency. I discovered that regulation is an incredibly powerful tool to promote responsible innovation, and there is no doubt that it will continue to play an important role. Development of policies and regulation, for new technologies for example, tends to be ‘evidence based’ – that is evidence is acquired to make the case for amending or bringing in new legislation, and here the research councils play an important role.

I’m fascinated by how this process works. Take for example nanotechnology, which has been described as the first industrial revolution of the 21st century. It’s small stuff, but big business, taking advantage of the fact that materials at the nanoscale (a billionth of a metre) can have fundamentally different properties compared to other (perhaps larger) forms of the same material. So while carbon nanotubes resemble tiny rolled-up sheets of graphite, they behave very differently – indeed, they have been called ‘the hottest thing in physics’.

Nanotechnology has a projected market value of many billions of pounds, potentially providing important solutions for renewable energy, healthcare, for the environment. But if these nanomaterials behave so differently, do they present greater risks, to the environment or to human health1? If so, do they need to be regulated differently? How do we balance economic growth with preventing harm to people and the environment?

In 2004 the Royal Society and Royal Academy of Engineering published an important report that showed the huge economic potential of nanotechnology, but also the great risks and uncertainties, particularly where the natural environment was concerned2. Soon after this I was asked to help write the Government’s research strategy to help address these uncertainties. I recognised that to understand these risks better, many of the questions we needed to answer were those of fundamental science: environmental fate and behaviour, nanoecotoxicology, detection.

In 2005 I worked closely with NERC, Defra and the Environment Agency to set up the Environmental Nanoscience Initiative (ENI), which was launched the following year. The first job was to build capacity, as there were only a few researchers working on the environmental behaviour and effects of manufactured nanoparticles in the UK. Two calls for research proposals and 17 grant awards later I feel we have made good progress in developing a strong community of scientists; my hope is that more will join them.

Building on this, the ENI has recently launched a second, and much larger phase, one that brings the existing partners together with the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and US Environmental Protection Agency to develop and validate models of exposure and bioavailability for key nanoparticles, drawing together complementary strengths from across the Atlantic.

I believe that collaborative programmes like the ENI are good models for funders to work together and are important ways of providing the evidence base on which policies and regulation can be developed. But what I have learnt from this process is that it naturally takes time. In the meantime innovation marches on, beyond nanoparticles, beyond nanotechnology. This means there will inevitably be long lags between innovation and the development of evidence-based regulation. That worries me, and it also worries the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, as they explained in their recent report on novel materials3. Regulation alone is not enough – we need to look for other, complementary ways to embed responsibility into the innovation process. This is what I am working on now4.

In the spring of this year EPSRC asked me to work with Richard Jones at Sheffield on their third nanotechnologies grand challenge call, which will be on the novel contribution nanotechnology can make for carbon capture and utilisation.

It’s an exciting area. They told me that in trying to solve one environmental problem they didn’t want to cause another. I proposed that, for the first time, they asked applicants to provide a brief ‘risk register’ in their proposals: one that asks them to consider any environmental, health or societal impacts and the level of associated risks for their proposed research. I hope this will help them think early on about the wider implications of their research, about any risks and uncertainties, which can then be managed in a timely way. This could perhaps be through targeted research, working across Councils through collaborative programmes such as the ENI.

I’m convinced there is a way to link innovation with responsibility more efficiently, to make it more anticipatory. And I’ve been struck by how willing and open the people I have worked with at NERC, EPSRC and ESRC have been to consider these approaches. Maybe there is a silver lining in the black cloud of the recent financial chaos; maybe we are learning that responsible innovation is sustainable innovation, that it’s a good thing, and that a commitment to it will help build resilient and responsible economies. Maybe Barack Obama was right, maybe we are about to enter a new era of responsibility. I hope so. [originally published in Planet Earth Online, October 19 2009]

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Professor Richard Owen holds a Chair in Environmental Risk Assessment at the University of Westminster. He is the Co-ordinator of the UK Environmental Nanoscience Initiative.

Further reading

Owen R and Handy R (2007) Formulating the problems for environmental risk assessment of nanomaterials. Environmental Science and Technology 41 (16): 5582-5588

www.nanotec.org.uk/finalReport.htm

www.rcep.org.uk/novelmaterials.htm

Owen et al (2009) Beyond Regulation: Risk Pricing and Responsible Innovation: Environmental Science and Technology 43 (18), pp 6902–6906.

Postscript: I am indebted to Richard and Planet Earth for their very positive response to my last minute request for this piece to be included in this blog series.  I found myself with an unexpected hole in the lineup, and they obliged by filling it post haste!  I should note that Richard’s perspective is unusual in the series in that he speaks as someone with closer ties to the establishment than most of the other authors.  Nevertheless, I believe his perspectives here add a richness to the dialogue on what the role of technology innovation is in the 21st century, and how we ensure it achieves this role.

By Jennifer Sass Ph.D. Senior Scientist, Natural Resources Defense Council

A guest blog in the Alternative Perspectives on Technology Innovation series

We need make sure that harmful or untested nano-scale chemicals are not manufactured or commercialized in ways that may lead to human exposures or environmental releases. I know, I know, I sound like a Luddite. Well, I’m okay with that.

The Luddites were an organized social movement of skilled textile artisans that gained notoriety in early 19^th century Britain for their protestations against mechanized weaving looms. The Luddites correctly predicted that their jobs would be replaced by industrial factories, cheap labor, and dehumanizing working conditions.

The term Luddite or Neo-Luddite is now a disparaging tag slapped on anyone that opposes new technologies. But the socioeconomic and geopolitical impacts associated with such changes – the real concern of the original Luddites – are rarely adequately addressed.

Is there a role for technology in progressive social movements? Sure.

It wasn’t until the mechanization of cotton harvesting in the 1980′s that Missouri Mississippi enacted compulsory education laws. New technology meant children were no longer needed in the field.

Lead wasn’t forced out of auto fuel when it was shown to destroy kid’s brains (known by the 1920s). It was removed when it was found to destroy catalytic converters introduced in the mid-1970′s. Technology not only saved future generations from leaded gasoline, but it reduced other harmful pollution from auto exhaust.

Nano-scale chemicals, intentionally designed to take advantage of unique properties at the small scale, are already offering social benefits, but at what costs?

Traditional treatment of hazardous waste sites is predominantly done with technologies such as carbon adsorption, chemical precipitation, filtration, steam, or bioremediation. Nanoremediation (can you believe there is already a new word for this?) can mean treatment with nanoscale metal oxides, carbon nanotubes, enzymes, or the already popular nanoscale zero-valent iron. The advantage is that the nano particles are more chemically-reactive and so may be designed to be more effective with less material. (see for example “Nanotechnology and in Situ Remediation: A Review of the Benefits and Potential Risks” by Karn et al., Environ. Health Perspect. 117, pp1823-1831. PDF,  1.2 MB)

But, what happens to the nanoparticles in the treated groundwater once they’ve completed their intended task? Do they just go away? Poof?

Carbon nanotubes are 100 times stronger than steel and six times lighter. Research to weave them into protective clothing is already underway, although nothing is on the market yet. Wearing a nano-carbon vest could make our soldiers bullet-proof, stab-proof, and still be light-weight.

But, what happens when the nanotubes are freed from the material, such as during the manufacturing of the textiles, fabrication of the clothing, or when it is damaged or destroyed in an explosion? Breathable nanotubes can be like asbestos fibers, causing deadly lung diseases.

If nano-scale elements are used extensively in electronics and computers, does this mean that most of the hazardous exposures associated with manufacturing and end-of-life stripping will fall to workers in the global south, whereas most of the advantages of improved technology will be reaped by the global north?

I’m not against new technologies per se. In fact, as a scientist I favor innovation. I love cool new stuff. But, will it make jobs more hazardous? Will it contaminate the environment? Will it contribute to social and economic injustices by distributing the risks and benefits unequally?

Let’s take some time to consider a thoughtful Luddite perspective by putting the brakes on applications of nano-scale chemicals that are untested, unsafe, unnecessary, or just unwise.

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Dr. Sass is a Senior Scientist in the Health and Environment program of the NRDC, an environmental non-profit organization. She oversees the U.S. government regulations of industrial chemicals and pesticides, and assesses the data underlying the regulatory decisions. Dr. Sass is well versed in the health sciences, with degrees in Anatomy and Cell Biology, and Toxicology, and has published over three dozen articles in peer-reviewed journals. Dr. Sass has presented testimony in the U.S. Congress and participated in U.S. government scientific advisory committees and the National Academies. She collaborates with scientists in the U.S. and internationally, working towards regulations that are as protective as possible of human and environmental health.

By Geoff Tansey

A guest blog in the Alternative Perspectives on Technology Innovation series

Andrew posed the question, “How should technology innovation contribute to life in the 21^st century?”

For me, working on creating a well-fed world, the short answer is: in a way that supports a diverse, fair and sustainable food system in which everyone, everywhere can eat a healthy safe, culturally appropriate diet. For that to happen, we need a change of direction in which the key innovations needed are social, economic and political, not technological. And the question is:  what kind of technology, developed by whom, for whom, will help; who has what power to decide on what to do and to control it, who carries the risks and gets the benefits.

Take the debate on GM technology, for example. We in the Food Ethics Council, building on a recent magazine (volume 3 issue 3 of Food Ethics Magazine), and five previous reports (Getting personal 2005, Just knowledge 2004, Engineering nutrition 2003, Trips with everything 2002, Novel foods 1999), are actively involved in reframing the debate. We argue that instead of asking, ‘how can GM technology help secure global food supplies’, we need to ask ‘what can be done – by scientists but also by others – to help the world’s hungry?’

When I stared the journal Food Policy in the mid 1970s we were worried about how to prevent the recurrence of the food crisis of the early 1970s and feed a population expected to increase by 50% by 2000. Sound familiar? In fact today, although more people are fed now than then, there are more hungry people now, 1.02 billion and far more overweight and obese people, 1.3bn as well as up to 2 billion people with micronutrient deficiencies. What we have developed in the rich world is a dysfunctional food system.

Technological innovation will not solve the problems of hunger and malnutrition in the future – just as it has not in the past – because they are not technical problems. But the kind of technological innovation we have will affect our ability to maintain a healthy food system – and for that we need major change, as the recent International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) pointed out – business as usual is not an option. In effect, we have made a massive mistake in taking the intensive fossil-fuel led approach to agricultural development and we need to take a more agro-ecological approach which needs just as smart, but different science and technology. A science that seeks to understand and work with complexity, and works with farmers to do so within an ecological framework, rather than a reductionist science that focuses narrowly on specific attributes and disciplines and is based on an economic framework totally inadequate for the task. Moreover, the direction of R&D (research and development) is being seriously distorted by the extension of rules on patents and other forms of monopoly or exclusionary privileges [misnamed intellectual property (IP) rights] into life forms and farming – which has been the quintessential disseminated open system of innovation, supported for most of the 20^th century by public good R&D.

Moreover, those firms that stand to benefit from an innovation system that privileges them through the way the IP system has developed, do not face the countervailing labelling, liability and redress requirements, and anti-trust measures, that would temper the speed with which they wish to apply their inventions in the market, seek first mover opportunities for increasing profitability and to use IP as a means to achieve and maintain market dominance. Instead, we are being led toward a model of R&D in food and farming similar to that of the marketing-based pharmaceutical industry, which fails to deliver for the diseases of poor people or which only a few suffer from.

In reality, the extension of IP rules globally through the inclusion of global minimum IP standards into the World Trade Organisation through the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS) Agreement was a conservative and protectionist response by a set of industries to real technological revolutions* that means their business model is defunct and should be replaced, as discussed by Schumpeter (see for instance here).

Remember, too, that you do not have to have a correct scientific understanding of something to develop technologies that work, but sometimes we need a revolution in the history of science to conceive of new ways of engineering things – from Einstein’s insight that matter could be converted to energy, and Watson and Crick’s discovery of DNA and our understanding that life – and information – is digital and can be manipulated and re-engineered as such. That leads to new technological possibilities, as does nano-tech and synthetic biology – but all new technologies are generally over-hyped and invariably have unintended consequences. Indeed, global warming is the unintended consequence of a fossil- fuel driven industrial revolution.

One of the means we’ve developed in the FEC to help think about these issues is an ethical matrix. This draws on various philosophical traditions we tend to use when thinking about what to do in terms of how it affects different groups’ wellbeing, autonomy and the justice or fairness of what is planned. It provides a means of examining the ethical positions of all interest groups – ensuring equality of treatment (justice/fairness). A very simple example is below.

An example of an ethical framework for addressing issues around food

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*See The Future Control of Food: A Guide to International Negotiations and Rules on Intellectual Property, Biodiversity and Food Security, Edited by Geoff Tansey and Tasmin Rajotte, available from Earthscan and also now freely available online in HTML and XML formats on IDRC’s website.

Geoff Tansey has worked on food, agriculture and development issues since the mid-1970s, after graduating with a BSc in Soil Science (1972) and MSc in History and Social Studies of Science (1975). In 1975, he helped found and edit the journal Food Policy, later worked on various agricultural development projects in Turkey, Mongolia, Albania and Kazakstan and was lead author of The Food System – a guide.

He has been a freelance writer, consultant, and occasional broadcaster, since the early 1980s. He has contributed features to many newspapers and magazines, various journals and books as well as written and edited a range of books.

Since the late 1990s, Geoff has worked on the impact of changing global rules on patents and other forms of intellectual property, on food, biodiversity, health and development. This has included consultancy with the UK Department for International Development, the Directorate-General for Trade of the European Commission and the Quaker International Affairs Programme (QIAP), Ottawa and Quaker United Nations Office (QUNO) in Geneva.

His voluntary work includes membership of the Food Ethics Council since 2000, chairing the Food Policy Committee of the Guild of Food Writers, April 2000-April 2002, and The Food Network (formerly the Northern Food Network) from 1995 – 2000. He was co-convenor of the Conflict and Security Study Group of the Development Studies Association, 1990 – 98 and Honorary Campaigns Consultant, World Development Movement, 1989 – 94.

By Georgia Miller, Friends of the Earth Australia

A guest blog in the Alternative Perspectives on Technology Innovation series

The promise that a given new technology will deliver environmentally benign electricity too cheap to meter, end hunger and poverty, or cure disease is very seductive. That is why the claims are made with many emerging technologies – nuclear power, biotechnology and nanotechnology, to name a few.

However history shows that such optimistic predictions are never achieved in reality. In addition to benefits, new technologies come with social, economic and environmental costs, and sometimes significant political implications.

Still, when it comes to public communication or policy making about nanotechnology, we’re often presented with the limited notion of weighing up predicted ‘benefits’ versus ‘risks’ (e.g. see here, here or here).

This framing ignores the broader costs and transformative potential of new technologies. It suggests that if we can only make nanotechnology ‘safe’, its development will necessarily deliver wealth, health, social opportunities and even environmental gains.

Ensuring technology safety is clearly very important. But simply assuming that ‘safe’ technology will deliver nothing but benefits, and that these benefits will be available to everyone, is – to put it mildly – quite optimistic.

To evaluate whether or not new technologies will help or hinder efforts to address the great ecological and social challenges of our time, we need to dig a little deeper.

The first generation of nano-products on the market attests to the primacy of the profit motive in guiding nanotechnology development, rather than a quest for environmental or social utility. A quick look at the Wilson Center’s Consumer Products Inventory reveals wrinkle-disguising cosmetics, meal-replacement diet milkshakes, stain-repellent ties and high performance golf clubs.

The huge proportion of the United States government’s nanotechnology research and development budget devoted to military applications – nearly a quarter in the 2010 budget – is also as concerning as it is revealing.

But let’s just agree to take a brief flight of fancy and imagine that governments, with public funding, did want to prioritise development of environmentally and socially useful technologies.

A brief survey of the challenges confronting our 21^st century world highlights why such a decision may be warranted.

We are reaching, if not exceeding, our planet’s ecological limits. Climate change is not the only problem – water shortages, loss of arable land, pollution, deforestation, desertification and mass species extinction all point to a looming ecological crisis.

We also face an often unacknowledged justice crisis. Last year’s unprecedented global food shortages, where food riots occurred in many countries, was a stark reminder than hundreds of millions of the world’s poorest citizens struggle to meet their most basic daily needs.

How do we have a mature conversation about the role of technologies in 21^st century innovation when we’re literally at make-or-break time ecologically, and the majority world is demanding an end to gross inequity?

First of all, we’d have to go beyond a superficial tally of ‘benefits’ versus ‘risks’ of new technologies, to ask some more thoughtful and critical questions. These include questions about whether technology – and what sort of technology – could help extract us from the mess we’re in, and whether technology – and what sort of technology – will dig us further in. They would also evaluate the extent to which a technology’s actual (rather than ideal) applications will help or hinder, and the extent to which helpful applications will be accessible to those who need them. Importantly, we’d also ask how decision making about technology could be opened up to those affected – wider publics.

We would have to recognise that some of the problems we face have social or economic causes to which technological fixes are not suited. In some instances greater technical capacity – or greater accessibility of a capacity that exists elsewhere – could certainly make a useful contribution. But in other instances the adoption of new technologies could have a damaging effect.

The last forty years was a period of significant technological innovation in which microelectronics, information technologies, medical treatments, telecommunications and biotechnologies were developed, and mass air travel expanded dramatically. Technologies transformed economies, political structures and daily life for both better and worse.

In this time of rapid technological development, there were winners, losers and a new scale of environmental cost. The per capita ecological footprint of many high income countries grew. The gap between the global rich and the global poor widened.

This is not to imply that technological innovation has been the only factor driving increasing resource use and widening inequities – clearly it hasn’t; a range of social, economic and political factors are relevant. But equally clearly, rapid technological innovation has not been the answer to our global problems.

Our experience demonstrates that technological innovation will not in itself enable us to live within our means – no amount of technology delivered efficiency will enable endless economic growth on a finite planet. Nor will technology reduce the inequities that divide rich and poor – this requires social, economic and political change.

Our experience also teaches us that environmentally or socially promising technologies will not necessarily be adopted, especially if they challenge the status quo. The government of Australia, one of the sunniest countries on earth, has pledged billions of dollars to cushion the coal industry from the effects of a proposed carbon trading system, while offering scant support to the fledgling solar energy sector.

There is a tendency to focus on the potential of new technologies to address our most pressing problems, rather than to seek better deployment of existing technologies, better design of existing systems, or changes in production and consumption. This reflects a preference to avoid systemic change. It also reflects an unfounded optimism that the ‘solution’ lies just over the horizon.

But sometimes ensuring better deployment of existing technologies is the most effective way to deal with a problem. Just as wider accessibility of existing drugs and medical treatments could prevent a huge number of deaths world-wide, improving urban storm water harvesting and re-use, housing insulation and mass transit public transport could go a long way to reducing our ecological footprint – potentially at a lower cost and at lower risk than mooted high tech options.

If evaluating the implementation or performance failures of previous technologies reveals economic or social obstacles or constraints, it’s probably these factors that warrant our attention. There is no reason to believe they will magically disappear once new technologies arrive.

Technological choices have a key part to play in achieving urgently needed environmental and social change. Making the best choices that we can has never been so important. This requires us to look beyond safety to ask bigger questions about new technologies. We must ask what is required to achieve our most critical social and environmental objectives, and be willing to accept that new technology is not always the answer. We must also ask what is required to ensure that those most affected by the outcomes of technology decision making have a voice in that decision making process.

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Georgia Miller coordinates Friends of the Earth Australia’s Nanotechnology Project. Friends of the Earth is an environment and social justice NGO which has national member groups in 77 countries. Georgia is particularly interested in supporting greater public involvement in science policy development and decision making, and in making technology more responsive to social and environmental needs.

More information about FoEA’s work on nanotechnology can be found at: http://nano.foe.org.au

By Gregor Wolbring

A guest blog in the Alternative Perspectives on Technology Innovation series

First let me thank Andrew for inviting me to write a piece for his blog. Andrew states that his blog is about “how technology innovation should contribute to living in the 21st century” and about “providing a clear perspective on developing science and technology responsible”. I will focus on two aspects here. Under ‘Innovation for whom’ I look at disabled people and their visibility in the science and technology (S&T) and problem identification discourses. Under ‘innovation for what’ I look at the issue of goals and ableism.

Innovation for whom?

S&T have huge positive potential, however bringing the positive potential to fruition depends on the right social environment and foresight to identify societal and other problems, and the willingness to address them.

How do disabled people fare in a) influencing the S&T discourse and b) highlighting their problems? Science and technologies have an impact on disabled people in at least four main ways. S&T may develop tools to adapt the environment in which disabled people live and give disabled people tools that would allow them to deal with environmental challenges. This side of S&T would make the life of disabled people more livable without changing the identity and biological reality of the disabled person. S&T may develop tools that would diagnose the part of disabled people’s biological reality seen by others as deficient, defect and impaired thus allowing for preventative measures. S&T may develop tools that would eliminate that portion of disabled people’s biological reality seen by others as deficient, defect, impaired. And S&T may influence and be influenced discourses, concepts, trends and areas of action that all also impact disabled persons. However disabled people seem to be invisible in most S&T governance and priority setting discourses (e.g. see Wolbring (2007) Nano-Engagement: Some critical issues Journal of Health and Development (India) Vol. 3 No 1-2, pp. 9-29). It is in particular striking that especially disabled people who do not perceive themselves as defective are mostly absent from the nano governance and priority setting discourses. Disabled people are also not part of the geoengineering or the synthetic biology discourse. And the list can be extended. This invisibility does not only exist for disabled people but extends to many other marginalized groups.

Disabled people are also highly impacted by contemporary problems such as climate change and disaster adaptation and mitigation, access to water and sanitation, access to food, and energy and so forth and are invisible in the discourses around contemporary problems.

I highlighted for example in the 2009 paper A culture of neglect: Climate discourse and disabled people that

1. it is believed that climate change will disproportionally and differently impact disabled people;
2. the record of disaster adaptation and mitigation efforts towards disabled people is less than stellar;
3. despite the fact that other social groups such as women, children, ‘the poor’, indigenous people, farmers and displaced people are mentioned in climate related reports such as the IPCC reports and the Human Development Report 2007/2008 Fighting climate change: human solidarity in a divided world, disabled people are not mentioned in these reports although they are uniquely impacted by the problems covered and
4. the adaptation and mitigation knowledge  existing among disabled people is not mainstreamed.

I highlighted in my nano water column that the first world water report ignored the different needs and insights disabled people have with respect to water and sanitation. The third edition of the world water report published in 2009 again ignored disabled people’s needs and insights with regard to water despite mentioning other marginalized groups such as indigenous peoples, women in developing countries, the rural poor and their children.  A memorandum for a World Water Protocol (MWWP) was recently generated. It also omits the mentioning of people with disabilities. It states “Place particular emphasis on the participation, especially those groups of citizens that are under privileged, notably, women, young people and workers/peasants.”

It seems the right social environment and foresight to identify societal and other problems does not exist in regards to disabled people and many other marginalized groups.

Innovation for what?

The Converging Technologies for the European Knowledge Society (CTEK) report (PDF) states “Converging technologies are enabling technologies and knowledge systems that enable each other in the pursuit of a common goal.” If goals are the drivers what drives the generation of goals, the favouritism for certain goals? Is there a common goal?

Ableism is one concept that shapes goals people put forward and is often a goal in itself. Ableism is at the root or a major contributing factor of many societal dynamics in history, today, and very likely the future. Science and technology research and development and governance and different forms of ableism have always been and will continue to be inter-related. The desire and expectations for certain abilities led and will continue to lead to the support of science and technology research and development that promises the fulfilment of these desires and expectations. Science and technology research and development led and will continue to lead to products that enable new abilities and expectations and desires for new forms of abilities making possible new forms of ableism.

So what is it?

One form of ableism favors normative species-typical body abilities and perceives non normative ‘sub’ species-typical body abilities as a state of lesser being and is criticized by disability studies scholars for a while.  However ableism is much more ubiquitous (for online articles see here and here). “This form of ableism is a main contributor to a social dynamic that leaves disabled people invisible in many discourses and only heard in certain discourses. It promotes a “we”, “other” dynamic whereby the “we” are the  species-typical and the  “other” are the ‘sub species-typical’. In its general form, it’s a set of beliefs, processes and practices that produce a particular kind of understanding of oneself, one’s body and one’s relationship with others of one’s species, other species and one’s environment. Ableism is based on a favouritisms for certain abilities that are projected as essential by certain individuals, households, communities, groups, sectors, regions, countries and cultures which at the same time label real or perceived deviation from, or lack of these essential abilities, as a diminished state of being. Ableism exists in many forms such as biological structure based ableism, cognition based ableism, ableism inherent to a given economic system, and social structure based ableism. The favouritism of abilities contributes to other isms such as racism, sexism, cast-ism, ageism speciesism, and anti-environmentalism. Furthermore certain issues are a reflection of the desire for certain abilities such as GDP-ism, consumerism and competitiveness-ism.

If one reads the Nanotechnology, Biotechnology, Information technology, and Cognitive science Converging Technologies for Improving Human Performance (NBIC) report it mentions productivity over 60 times and the term efficiency 54 times and the term competitiveness 29 times. The CTEK report states “Europe may value global competitiveness and economic growth above all else or may seek to balance it against values of social and environmental justice.”

The jury is still out which abilities we try to support with science and technology advances. We have to choose which abilities we cherish and which ableism we exhibit. I submit that the fields of Ability and Ableism ethics, studies, foresight and governance are essential lenses for responsible S&T advancement.

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Gregor Wolbring is an Assistant Professor at the University of Calgary, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Community Health Science, Program in Community Rehabilitation and Disability Studies. He is Affiliated Scholar, Center for Nanotechnology and Society at Arizona State University, USA; Part Time Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa Canada and Adjunct Faculty Critical Disability Studies York University, Canada. He is among others President elect of the Canadian Disability Studies Association and Chair of the Bioethics Taskforce of Disabled People’s International.

For further information, see:

Ableism and Ability Ethics and Governance blog: http://ableism.wordpress.com

The Choice is Yours column: http://www.innovationwatch.com/commentary_choiceisyours.htm

Nano Bio Info Cogno Synbio Blog: http://wolbring.wordpress.com/

What Sorts of People blog: http://whatsortsofpeople.wordpress.com/

]]> http://2020science.org/2009/12/14/wolbring/feed/ 7 http://2020science.org/2009/12/14/darnovsky/ http://2020science.org/2009/12/14/darnovsky/#comments Mon, 14 Dec 2009 14:00:31 +0000 Guest http://2020science.org/?p=2545

By Marcy Darnovsky, PhD, Associate Executive Director of the Center for Genetics and Society

A guest blog in the Alternative Perspectives on Technology Innovation series

Much appreciation is due to Andrew for his courage in soliciting “alternative perspectives” on technology innovation and life in the 21st century.  I can’t help but observe that his nervousness about doing so is one small sign that something is amiss in what he calls “the interface between emerging technologies and society.”

One challenge we face in mending that interface is a tendency toward over-enthusiasm about prospective technologies. Another is the entanglement of technology innovation and commercial dynamics. Neither of these is brand new.

Back in the last century, the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair took “technological innovation” as its theme and “A Century of Progress” as its formal name. Its official motto was “Science Finds, Industry Applies, Man Conforms.”

The slogan shamelessly depicts “science” and “industry” as dictator – or at least drill sergeant – of humanity. It anoints industrial science as a rightful decision-maker about human ends, and an inevitable purveyor of societal uplift.

Today the 1933 World’s Fair slogan seems altogether crass. But have we earned our cringe? We’d like to think that we’re more realistic about science and technology innovations. We want to believe that, in some collective sense, we’re in control of their broad direction. But are we less giddy about the techno-future now than we were back then?  Does technology innovation now serve human needs rather than the imperatives of commerce? Have we devised social and cultural innovations for shaping new technologies – do we have robust democratic mechanisms that encourage citizens and communities to participate meaningfully in decisions about their development, use and regulation?

I’m afraid that the habits of exaggerating the benefits of new technologies and minimizing their unwanted down sides are with us still. And in my view there’s huge room for improvement in our capacity for democratic governance of technology innovation.

Part of the problem is a lag in acknowledging how technology innovation now typically unfolds. Popular perceptions of scientific and technological development still feature white-coated researchers toiling late into the night for the benefit of humanity (or demented Dr. Frankensteins heedlessly pursing their own grand ambitions). To whatever extent these images may have once been realistic, they are now downright misleading. Technology innovation is increasingly dominated by large-scale commercial imperatives. Over the past century, and ever more so since the 1980 Bayh-Dole Act (an attempt to spur innovation by allowing publicly funded researchers to profit from their work), innovators have become scientist-entrepreneurs, and universities something akin to corporate incubators.

Commercial dynamics have become particularly influential in the biosciences. It’s hard to imagine any scientist today responding as Jonas Salk did in 1955, when he said with a straight face that “the people” own the polio vaccine. “There is no patent,” he told legendary news broadcaster Edward R. Murrow. “Could you patent the sun?”

Of course, entrepreneurial activity in technology and science often delivers important benefits. It can bring new discoveries and techniques to fruition quickly, and make them available rapidly. Some recent commercial technologies, most notably in digital communication and computing, are stunning indeed.

But how far have we come from the slogan of the 1933 World’s Fair? Technology developers still routinely present their plans either as “inevitable” or as crucial for economic growth. As for the rest of us, we have few opportunities to deliberate – especially as citizens, but also as consumers – about the risks as well as the benefits of technology innovations. Twenty-first century societies and communities too often wind up conforming to new technologies rather than finding ways to shape their goals and direction.

In considering the future of human reproductive, genetic and related technologies (this is the major focus of my organization, the Center for Genetics and Society), the prospect of conforming to the imperatives of science and industry carries a chillingly literal implication. Scattered but persistent voices advocate that we “design” or “engineer” the traits of our children and of future generations. Some enthusiasts acknowledge that this would likely exacerbate social inequality; they recognize the very real possibility of a GATTACA-like future peopled with genetic haves and have-nots. But they remain gung-ho. Others fail to challenge such visions on the shaky libertarian grounds that an individual’s choice to alter the human species should trump commitments to social justice and human rights.

Fortunately, these are minority views.  Inheritable genetic modification is opposed by large majorities in opinion surveys, and has been formally rejected in the laws of nearly 50 countries. Unfortunately, there is no such policy in the U.S. Nor does the U.S. meaningfully regulate assisted reproductive technologies as other industrial democracies do.

What’s needed now is a new kind of biopolitical thinking. Toward that end, here are five principles that I believe should inform deliberation about innovation in human biotechnologies (and other major technologies as well):

• First, let’s acknowledge that the practices and products of science are inherently political [PDF]. They affect us collectively, shaping our communities and the larger world we share. That inescapable fact makes it legitimate—in fact obligatory—to subject powerful new technologies, including human biotech and related emerging technologies, to social negotiation and, when appropriate, to responsible control.

• Second, we need systematic, inclusive, and robust public conversations about the consequences of technology innovations and the values they support or undermine. This is especially challenging for reproductive and genetic technologies because of Americans’ strongly divergent views about beginning-of-life matters. If we can establish habits of thoughtful deliberation about these technologies, we’d have taken a big step forward.

• Third, the known and potential social consequences of technology innovations – not just their safety and efficacy – should be systematically included in our evaluations. We should particularly assess their impacts on socially and economically vulnerable populations.

• Fourth, we should draw on the lessons of previous efforts by socially concerned scientists and their supporters—the “atomic scientists,” environmentalists, public health advocates, and others—to safeguard human health and the environment, bolster responsible science, and build a more just society. We should be skeptical of technological fixes for social problems, and of innovations that serve elite groups rather than the public interest and the common good.

• Fifth, we should acknowledge that market mechanisms are not a substitute for public policy, and affirm the legitimacy and urgency of democratic oversight of major technology innovations, including human biotechnologies. As we would in other arenas, we should avoid regulatory capture, eliminate conflicts of interest, and maximize transparency, accountability, and wide participation in policy making.

The good news is that a new approach to biopolitics is taking shape, one that supports technology innovation when it serves human needs and socially defined goals, and when its broad directions are shaped by democratic governance. A growing network of civil society leaders, public intellectuals, and scientists is taking on the challenge. Contact CGS for more information.

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Marcy Darnovsky, PhD, is Associate Executive Director at the Center for Genetics and Society, a Berkeley, California-based public affairs organization working to encourage responsible uses and effective societal governance of reproductive and genetic biotechnologies.

More information:

Center for Genetics and Society www.geneticsandsociety.org

Biopolitical Times www.biopoliticaltimes.org

More about the guidelines for 21^st-century biopolitics:

“Political Science: Progressives can’t—and shouldn’t—remove politics and values from science,” Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, Summer 2009 http://www.democracyjournal.org/article.php?ID=6700

2020 Science is something of a labor of love – it’s a website where I explore my thoughts and ideas surrounding the interface between science, technology and society beyond the constraints of my “day job” (currently Chief Science Advisor to the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies at the Woodrow Wilson Center).  I like to think I bring a balanced and, on a good day, sophisticated perspective to the stuff I write about.  So I was intrigued and just a little taken aback when Jim Thomas at ETC Group, recently pointed out that, actually, I’m quite obviously flying the flag for the established pro-technology innovation camp.

Jim was right – up to a point.  I do adhere to the “ideology” that if we are to survive the future, we need to get a lot smarter in how we develop and use technology.  But I also hope that I’m aware enough to recognize that there are other very different, but equally legitimate, perspectives on the role of technology innovation in society.  So this got me thinking – maybe I should invite a group of people with a range of different perspectives on tech innovation to write a series of guest blogs on the subject.  I’d find it useful.  But more importantly, I think people reading this blog would find it useful.

After speaking to a few friends within the Civil Society community (including NGOs like ETC Group, NRDC and Friends of the Earth), the idea took shape:  I would dedicate a week’s worth of blog space to ten different thought-leaders, asking each of them to address a single question:

“How should technology innovation contribute to life in the 21^st century?”

With no editorial control from me (bar framing the question), and a few simple guidelines on length and style, my hope was that this would provide something of a unique perspective on the role of technology innovation in society – including its potential downsides – and demonstrate that the future depends on responding to and working with many value systems, not just the apparently prevalent ones.

I should in all honesty point out that the thought of handing over the blog to a bunch of NGOs for the week scared the life out of me.  As it turns out, the process has been overwhelmingly positive.  Not only did these writers from a range of organizations graciously agree to write for the blog – they produced articles that without exception inform, challenge and enlighten.

The series starts next Monday (Dec 14) and ends on Dec 18.  Each day, I will be posting two guest blogs from the series; one in the morning, one in the afternoon.  The complete lineup can be found here.

Do look out for them and read them – they all well worth the time.  I don’t expect everyone will agree with everything that’s written – that’s OK.  But do me a favor – if you don’t agree (or even if you do, or have additional points you would like to make or questions you would like to ask), please do add comments to the blogs – that’s what the “Leave a Comment” box is there for!

With that, all that remains is for me to thank my ten guest bloggers – who without exception the gave of their time and energy with great generosity, and far exceeded my expectations.  Thank you.

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The ten guest bloggers are:

Marcy Darnovsky, Center for Genetics & Society

Gregor Wolbring, University of Calgary

Georgia Miller, Friends of the Earth

Geoff Tansey, Food Ethics Council

Jen Sass, Natural Resource Defense Council (NRDC)

Richard Owen, University of Westminster

Richard Worthington, Loka

George Kimbrell, International Center for Technology Assessment (ICTA)

Tim Jackson, University of Surrey

Jim Thomas, ETC Group

See the full series details at “Technology innovation, life, and the 21st century – ten alternative perspectives“

Update, 12/15/09 – Richard Owen was added as a late substitution for Debra Harry

Part 9 of a series on rethinking science and technology for the 21^st century

Writing about completing the circle of science and technology policy at the start of the Copenhagen climate summit seems particularly fitting.  Although the climate change context was far from my mind when I started this series, it stands as a stark reminder of the consequences of unconstrained science and technology, the possibilities of using science and technology to create a better future, and the daunting complexities of crafting policies that get us as a society to where we want to be.

Whether it’s dealing with climate change or innumerable other issues, the way we develop and use science and technology needs to be responsive to the challenges we face as a society, and the social, political and economic environment within which we face them.  Simply funding scientists to do what takes their fancy isn’t likely to deliver the goods in a world increasingly dominated by the three C’s – Communication, Control and Coupling.  Yet heavy-handed control of the science agenda is clearly not the answer—autonomy and open-ended research are essential to scientific discovery and innovation.

So what’s the answer?  How do we ensure our investment in science and technology as a society achieves what we believe it should, without over-indulging a science elite, or stifling discovery and innovation?  At the end of the last blog in this series I suggested that we need increased feedback in the policy process to make it work better.

Feedback loops take some of the output of a process and feed it back into the input – they’re a way of regulating a process so that it remains responsive, and doesn’t get out of control.  Of course, the business of policy is full of feedback loops.  In fact the whole political process can be seen as one rather large feedback loop – unpopular leaders and decisions usually end up being overturned, although sometimes the “time constants” are rather long.  The next two weeks in Copenhagen is a prime example of feedback in policy-making – even if this is a feedback loop with a rather large time constant.

However just because feedback mechanisms exist doesn’t mean that they are as effective as they could be…

In part 8 of this series, I proposed two feedback loops in particular that will become increasingly important to developing more responsive science and technology policy: Review and Participation.

The Review loop should be reasonably clear: It deals with comparing the actual impact of policy decisions with the intended impact, and adjusting the inputs to realign the outcomes.  This might mean altering the original goals, increasing (or even decreasing) the resources made available for specific areas, or changing the mechanisms by which those resources are used (for example).  It seems obvious, but it isn’t often done that well in practice.  There’s a fine line between too little and too much feedback, or feedback that’s fast but ill-informed and feedback that’s comprehensive but interminable!  Yet if we don’t get this balance right, it will be near-impossible to craft policies that respond to the ever-accelerating opportunities and challenges presented by 21^st century science and technology.

The Participation loop on the other hand may not be quite so clear.  This arises in to a large degree from one of the three “C’s” – communication – but is also driven by the other two – control and coupling.

Old-style “command and control” approaches to policy haven’t a hope of working in tomorrow’s hyper-connected world.  Through rapid and radical advances in global communication, people have become an inextricable part of the decision-making process – as a society, we now have a louder voice than ever before.  Policy makers can either fight this, or embrace it.

Integrating the participation of individuals and groups with a stake in science and technology into the policy process is a pragmatic necessity.  These are the people who will be affected by the outcomes of decisions made by governments, and who will become increasingly vocal – and influential – if they don’t like those decisions.  They are also a potential force for positive change – by listening to the “consumers” of science and technology, it becomes possible to craft policies which address their actual wants and needs, rather than making assumptions on their behalf.

There is also an ethical dimension here – to what extent is it appropriate for an elite handful of decision-makers to decide what is good for the masses?  Certainly, where highly complex information needs to be understood, interpreted and acted on, expert input is needed.  But broader decisions on the relevance and implications of science and technology should arguably involve the people (and organizations) who stand to benefit or suffer as a result of them.

So what are the keys and consequences to developing (or further developing) these two feedback loops?

When I gave the original lecture on which these notes are based, I identified three action-areas that will both help establish the loops, and ensure their effectiveness: empowerment, engagement and evaluation.

Empowering stakeholders

Neither of these two feedback loops will work if people and organizations are not empowered to become effective stakeholders.  This goes for expert stakeholders as well as lay stakeholders (which in most cases is people like you and me).  However, the challenges to empowering each group are different.

Lay stakeholders need to be provided with the ability to deal with the complexities of modern science and technology – and not to be intimidated by them.  Critical thinking is essential here – people need to be enabled to make sense of information, and separate out what is more important from what is less significant.  Information also needs to be accessible – in its original form (predominantly as peer reviewed publications), in non-expert syntheses, and in appropriate media coverage (and I’m including blogs here).  And importantly, the consequences of science and technology-related decisions need to be conveyed to non-expert stakeholders.  Even though many people struggle to understand the principles behind modern science and technology, most can grasp what it means to them personally if it is explained well.

Expert stakeholders on the other hand need to learn to communicate effectively, if they are to play their part in these feedback loops.  And critically, they need to learn to listen – to understand what the questions are, before providing answers.

Engaging stakeholders

This is a huge subject, worthy of several blog sites on its own (many of which already exist), and there is no way I can do it justice in a few sentences.  Yet looking at stakeholder engagement from the perspective of the two feedback loops being discussed, four points are worth highlighting:

First is the need for public discourse.  Without this, how will people know what is going on in science and technology, how it will affect them, and how they can play a part in shaping their future?  This leads directly into participation in decision-making.  Public engagement is not about communication, education or persuasion – it is about making people an integral part of the policy process – providing them with a seat at the table, where they will be listened to and taken seriously.

Effective public discourse and engagement will only be possible though if science is more completely integrated into society.  Rather than being seen as someone else’s problem, science in the 21^st century needs to be seen as everyone’s “problem.”  This will need some cultural changes if progress is to be made, from addressing educators who can’t see the point of science, to tackling politicians and public figures that undermine it, to dealing with scientists who strive to maintain their self-allotted place at the top of the intellectual pyramid.  But without changing the culture that determines science’s place within society, it will remain the realm of the elite.  And in a world increasingly dependent on science and technology, this can only lead to a Technocracy – in spirit, if not in name.

One possible approach to increasing the level of science and technology engagement is to build science and technology constituencies – groups of people with a vested interest in seeing science and technology developed and used effectively in specific areas.  The idea comes from medical research, where highly vocal involvement from non-expert stakeholders can have a huge influence on research investment, direction and application.

This approach is fraught with difficulties – the possibilities for ill-informed decisions are rife when poorly informed groups lobby for narrow areas of research to take a specific course.  But putting that aside, it’s intriguing to ask what would happen if communities were energized to be a part of research initiatives into areas like clean energy, water access, transport, food production?  What if passive lay “stakeholders” were given the opportunity to be active stakeholders, who could see a direct return on their investment in supporting and being a part of research initiatives that meant something to them?

Science and technology constituencies are a potentially dangerous idea – they take power away from the established elite for a start.  But it’s an intriguing concept nevertheless, and one that should probably be explored further.

(Re)Evaluating drivers, mechanisms and policies.

Finally, what’s the relevance of these feedback loops to people in a position to review and influence policy decisions?

In my original lecture, I highlighted three areas that policy makers and research funders should be focusing on: challenge-informed science, new knowledge stimulation, and knowledge-coupling.

Challenge-informed science. This is a bit of a hot potato.  The question of how you strike a balance between so-called blue skies research and applied research has vexed the science community for years, and at times has become extremely heated.  But rather than argue for one or the other, I would reframe the question and ask “how can we best develop science and technology policies that are socially relevant?”

Science for its own sake is essential – as I explain below.  But policy makers are accountable for how they spend a limited pot of public money.  For instance, if a country or region is facing challenges that will impact severely on peoples’ lives and livelihoods, and that could be alleviated through strategic investment in science and technology, it is hard for policy makers to argue for the bulk of science funding to go towards research that is irrelevant, which may serendipitously lead to some solutions to some future challenges, or which will lead to relevant knowledge but too late to be of any use.

Of course, the counter-argument is that it is naïve to assume that science and technology can be coerced into providing rapid solutions to challenges.  I would agree with this.  Yet at the same time, it is entirely possible for science and technology to be framed and guided—informed—by challenges (and opportunities) that society is facing now, or is likely to face in the future.  This doesn’t preclude blue skies research – but it does increase the chances of science and technology leading to socially relevant solutions.

And it should never be forgotten that practicing science is not an inalienable right – scientists (and technologists and engineers) and ultimately accountable to their patrons – who in this day and age tend to be their fellow citizens.

New Knowledge stimulation. So where does that leave blue skies research?  I would argue that there is always a justification for supporting open ended, exploratory research for three reasons:  It enriches society through raising our awareness of who we are and the universe we live in; it leads to serendipitous discovery; and it lays a foundation on which more applied research and technology innovation can be built.  It is essential to the science enterprise.  The only question is where the balance between open ended and ends-justified research should be.

I would argue that blue skies research should not dominate science and technology, except where there is a strong and specific argument for it to do so (the mega-expensive Large Hadron Collider comes to mind, where progress can only be made with substantial investment and little promise of practical return).  I would also suggest that it should be led by the most able researchers—those most capable of pushing the boundaries of knowledge.  And it should still be held accountable – even if this means communicating the more metaphysical and philosophical impacts of the work.  Blue skies research should never be a free ticket for researchers to do what they want at someone else’s expense.

Knowledge coupling. “Interdisciplinary research” is a buzz phrase that has been around for decades – often as a means of winning grants, which are then used for anything but true interdisciplinary research.  Yet it’s hard to deny that some of the more significant advances in science and technology occur at the intersections between different areas of expertise.  And it’s not only when researchers work between different scientific disciplines that innovation occurs – collaborations between scientists and engineers, social scientists, experts in the humanities and others are proving to be equally profitable.

What we are seeing is the effect of “knowledge coupling” – ensuring knowledge can flow between different fields of expertise with ease, leading to new ideas, new avenues of research and, ultimately, new advances in science and technology.  This seems to be a more useful concept than “interdisciplinary research” as it captures the essence of how knowledge and information lead to discovery, innovation and progress.  The more we can remove barriers to this cross-disciplinary, cross-expertise and cross-sector flow of knowledge, the better we will be at both stimulating new science, and using it effectively.

Pulling it all together

Developing and using science and technology effectively in the 21^st century will not be easy.  Increasingly, we’re facing “wicked problems” – problems that many stakeholders are interested in, but which remain elusive and ill-defined.  Science and technology are leading to some of these problems, but they also hold the keys to solving them – but only if we learn to use them wisely and effectively.  Integral to this process is getting the policy framework right, so that informed and effective decisions can be made.  And this in turn will depend on how the outcomes of the science and technology enterprise are fed back into the inputs – leading to policies that are responsive and effective.

As scientists, leaders, decision-makers, lobbyists and others gather in Copenhagen over the next two weeks, it will be an interesting test of how effectively science and technology policy are serving society, and how far we still have to go if we are to rise to the emerging challenges of the 21^st century.  Will we see the “nasty brutish debate with science caught somewhere in the middle” predicted by Tim Harper, or will a more mature and enlightened approach emerge?

I suspect Tim is right on this one, but hopefully he isn’t – because more than ever before we need to get science and technology right if we are to deal with the opportunities and challenges that Coupling, Communication and Control are going to throw our way over the coming decades.

Notes

Rethinking science and technology for the 21st century is a series of blogs drawing on a recent lecture given at the James Martin School in Oxford.  This is a bit of an experiment—the serialization of a lecture, and a prelude to a more formal academic paper.  But hopefully it will be both interesting and useful.

Previously: Riding the wave: Rethinking science & technology policy

Next: Science and Technology Innovation – looking to the future

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