Advisor: Prof. Baldwin

 

Technology is on the incline, and the world is on the decline.  True, the technology today has become increasingly more efficient, but with the exponential growth of an ever-prodigal human population, having more efficient technology is not enough.  What is required is a conscientious mode of thinking, where we realize that every step we take leaves a footprint.  We need to leave smaller prints.

Idealistically, the world would be a much healthier place if technology had never appeared.  The human race would not be searching for remedies to the problems that have arisen from the Industrial Revolution to the present.  These alleviations would not be sought after because the mistakes from the technology would never have occurred.  Although there are benefits of technology, there is always a double-edged sword to such supposed blessings brought forth by the human intellect.

Deep Ecology is a philosophy that adopts the idea that all of nature, and the consequences of Man’s “progress” in technology are interconnected.  Outwardly, this philosophy may not appear to be a technology in and of itself.  However, if the idea of deep ecology is taken into account when new technology is developed, it will keep further detriment to the environment at bay, thus making the new technology “green” by association and execution.

There are many who support this view, such as Jacques Ellul, Henry David Thoreau, and even unorthodox geniuses such as the Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski, who knows that the technology and its industry have corrupted our present society, and thus the environment in which it resides.  Unfortunately, people like the Unabomber with such dubious backgrounds and rather scary tactics of executing what he deems as a necessary revolution give those who would change the system of technology within the system a bad name, and therefore court battles with environmentalists often find the offenders with the sympathy, as the environmentalists are supposedly attempting to bring some sort of eco-fascism to the country.

I wish that this will make people realize that the world was a much better place not so long ago, when our ecological footprints were as ephemeral as those found on a windswept desert.  The question I hope it raises is what have we given up, and was it really worth it.