Date: 22 November 2011

This week we will be talking about technological solutions to environmental and social issues–whether or not technology and innovation can repair damage to environment and improve social structures on the planet. Our guest will be Michael Huesemann, coauthor of a book titled Techno-Fix: Why Technology Won’t Save Us or the Environment. We’ll ask Michael to explain and support this dramatic assertion. If technology can’t repair the planet, what, if anything, can?

Listen to the Program

Our Discussion with Michael Huesemann

Listeners to this program know well that we live in an age of high technology and that our technology has its costs, most obviously to the environment, less obviously, perhaps, to quality of life all over the globe. But we are also regularly told that technological innovation and efficiency can remedy these problems: more miles per gallon, sequester the C02, genetically create better food for the hungry. But our guest tonight sharply disagrees. Michael Huesemann has done a great deal of research on engineering, biotechnology, the environment, and public policy. He and Joyce Huesemann have published a book with New Society with a crisp and forthright title: Techno-Fix: Why Technology Won’t Save Us or the Environment.

Part I: What is techno-fix.

1. First please tell us about your title. What is “Techno-Fix,” and why won’t it save us?

2. You and Joyce Huesemann write at length about the world’s current, almost religious faith in technology and its origins. Where did that faith come from? (You write of Bacon, Descartes, and the Enlightenment; the industrial revolution and domination over nature; “modern” economy, media and advertising.)

3. You write of the “unintended consequences” of technology. Please give us one or several examples, e.g, automobiles, industrial ag. You also say that negative unintended consequences are inevitable. Aren’t technologists smart enough to be able to anticipate these and remediate them?

4. The book is also deeply concerned about social consequences of technology and technofixes. You say that technology is essentially about power, subjugation, and exploitation of others. Please explain. You also argue that some techno-fixes are actually social “fixes” that fail. Please give us an example or two, e.g., medical technology, the green revolution, war.

5. We noticed that in your book you and Joyce frequently use first person plural pronouns–“we” “our”–to describe the world’s faith in technology. [” . . . unless we confront the root causes of our complex technological and social problems, we will, like drug addicts, apply one techno-fix after another . . . ] Who exactly is this “we”? all humans? some? the powerful? the poor? To what extent are “we” all complicit in this situation? Are some of us more complicit than others? Am I complicit when I start my car or turn on my i-phone?

Part II: A New Paradigm

6. You call for a change in worldview from individualism to interconnectedness. Please explain that and how it might change people’s use of technology and resources. How might it change our treatment of our fellow human beings?

7. You devote several chapters to dispelling the myth that science and technology are, themselves, neutral, value free. Please explain that myth and why we need to shift away from it.

8.  Could a different view of science and technology maybe save us and the planet after all? Can you give us an example of “critical science”?

9. You have some very strict requirements for what you call “design criteria for socially appropriate technologies.” [truly sustainable energy, sustainable materials use, zero waste] Is meeting these remotely possible? Can you give us an example or two of current models that are promising?

10. At the end of the book, you have discussion questions “for further thought,” and your website offers materials for use by educators. What role do you see education playing in a changed worldview? Are there education programs you particularly respect?

[FYI: We’ve been members of an educational group called Science, Technology, Society (STS)that tries to infuse science/technology/social ethics into school English, social studies, and science classes. The teachers involved have done some pretty cool stuff encouraging kids to think about unanticipated consequences of technology.]

11. On this program, we regularly ask guests, “How can this kind of change happen?” Will it take government intervention and regulation? fiscal or other incentives? the enlightened self interest of captialism? individual people doing the right thing? panic when the end is near? What’s your degree of optimisim that the changes you describe can and will take place on a scale that matters?

12. Finally, how can listeners become involved at local, regional, or global levels? You have a website   The book is Techno-Fix (co-authored with Joyce Huesemann) and it’s published by New Society (a publisher that has a great list of ecotopian books).


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