Technology and the Environment

[BorkedSystem32]

Hello there,

As you know, climate change and the concerns around the environment are gaining more attention as the days pass us. Technology - both the usage and production of it - causes many problems: how much electricity is used by a product, electronic wastage(e-waste), and many, many more(such as Bitcoin mining).

In this thread, we can discuss the problems surrounding technology and its effects on the environment, what you've done to curb your own carbon footprint(in regards to technology and usage of it), and what you hope to see in the future regarding technology and its effects on the environment(e.g. technology that uses less electricity).

Please, for the sake of the staff, try to avoid heated arguments and please post information from reliable sources. Thanks.

 

[simong1993]

Good idea of a thread So lets be straight here, as a race we could go ECO friendly tomorrow, We could remove all petrol cars and replace them with electric or H2O. We could go fully solar, wind and tidal. I remember reading somewhere that if you took 1 quarter of some desert and put solar panels there it would power the whole planet, we now also have them algae trees that produce oxygen. We have the tech and the know how to do it, Why don't we? Its simple GREED. The world runs on oil and the big cats do not want you to stop using oil so of course they are going to dig there heels in and make it harder for us.

 

[BorkedSystem32]

Thanks for replying, @simong1993!

The possibilities we have in terms of producing electricity are amazing on paper, but of course, they are costly - money is a big issue in this crisis. The fact that oil is a costly resource and is a huge industry in of itself is another problem that needs to be addressed. To give you an idea of costs(both money and environmental): the materials to build these new, clean, power stations(e.g. steel) are costly; land/oceans are built on, potentially causing habitat destruction; and then you have the building/engineering industries: their workers cost a lot(especially as inflation causes wages/salaries and the cost of living to rise) and their industry in general doesn't have the cleanest environmental record.

In regards to vehicles and transport, again, it's cost. Electric vehicles are only just taking off and so it will be a few years until they are around the same price range as your standard petrol car. Not only that, what about charging them up? Mass rolling out of charging stations needs to be done to keep up with the influx of new electricity-powered vehicles. I think we should also be focusing on improving public transport infrastructure too: switching buses/trains/taxis to electricity and bigger public transport vehicles to allow more people to travel(especially as overpopulation is also a growing issue). The better public transport is, the less people will need for private transport, therefore, we should hopefully see a small decrease in total vehicles on the road.

We have a lot of problems to address in this crisis and while it may be easy to come up with great ideas like building cleaner methods of electricity production and banning petrol/diesel vehicles, we need to go deeper and consider other factors like the economy, where we're building, how long it will take to fully phase out the old, etc. To address the big issue, we need to tackle the smaller ones first.

When it comes to climate change(and pretty much any subject), education is(or should be) top-priority. Teaching young ones to identify the proper bins and what items are disposed in which is important at an early age; later, they should learn how to properly recycle and dispose of items - especially old hardware. Ideas like reusing old computers are good, however, many seem blind to this idea, and will always buy the latest and "greatest, therefore, it's important that ideas like reusing second-hand items are taught at an early age. Really, look at all the old ThinkPad models or old TVs that people like to buy - there's a whole market there of hardware that works fine and all it needs is a good clean or maybe a new screw or two.

Note for readers of this thread: I'll be updating the original post as time goes on with resources on what you can do to combat climate change - from a technological perspective, of course. Keep an eye out!