One of the core messages in John Feffer's article (AlterNet: http://www.alternet.org/... )about using technology to solve our food, environmental and energy problems is that we should be very cautious about relying on technology to solve these problems. I would expand his message to a total prohibition on counting on high-tech solutions to solve our current problems.
Using technology to attempt to solve these problems while maintaining the same lifestyle is an insane notion that ignores the inevitable side effects of new technologies, the accelerating demand for applying these new technologies and the ultimate depletion of resources.
In addition to these problems is is the urgency of climate-change, the agricultural crisis, and energy problem compared to the time that would be required to test new technologies for just short-term effects. Long term effects may be impossible to predict until it is too late.
For example, the idea of polluting the oceans and stratosphere to address global warming reminds me of the Vietnam maxim "We must destroy the village to save the village". It makes as much sense. The pollution used to solve one problem will become a problem itself eventually.
Another problem with technological solutions to these three crises ignores another major catastrophe, namely the growing shortage of water. Even if we adopted these high-tech solutions, the water shortage would be the fly in the oinment.
If we pose the question as to who benefits from these technological solutions as opposed to alternatives, we discover that it is big business. So instead of following a sensible, natural path to reducing greenhouse emissions, solving the food problem, and adopting alternateive forms of energy, we would be adopting a highly risky, untested, and short term solution to preserve the profits of large corporations.
The corporatocracy wants to preserve its monopoly and wealth and power with unnatural solutions to our problemns rather than conservation, alternate forms of energy and farming. The public must resist as if our planet were at stake, because it is.
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