Technology Versus Ecology

Technology Versus Ecology

Author: Robert A. Schultz

Publisher:

Published: 2014

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781466645868

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"This book explores the issues revolving around the conflict between technology versus human beings, the concern for the separation of human beings in the ecosystem, and the negative consequences that may follow as ecosystems are being damaged"--


Technology versus Ecology: Human Superiority and the Ongoing Conflict with Nature

Technology versus Ecology: Human Superiority and the Ongoing Conflict with Nature

Author: Schultz, Robert A.

Publisher: IGI Global

Published: 2013-09-30

Total Pages: 332

ISBN-13: 1466645873

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Although human beings are technically part of the ecosystem, there still remains a conceptual conflict between technology and nature. These concerns highlight the idea of human superiority in which the priority is given to technology versus living in synchronization with nature. Technology versus Ecology: Human Superiority and the Ongoing Conflict with Nature explores the issues revolving around the conflict between technology versus human beings, the concern for the separation of human beings in the ecosystem, and the negative consequences that may follow as ecosystems are being damaged. This book is a significant reference source for researchers, instructors, and students interested in the constant evolution of technology and ecology.


Information Ecologies

Information Ecologies

Author: Bonnie A. Nardi

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2000-02-28

Total Pages: 250

ISBN-13: 9780262640428

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A call for informed, responsible engagement with information technology at the local level. The common rhetoric about technology falls into two extreme categories: uncritical acceptance or blanket rejection. Claiming a middle ground, Bonnie Nardi and Vicki O'Day call for responsible, informed engagement with technology in local settings, which they call information ecologies. An information ecology is a system of people, practices, technologies, and values in a local environment. Nardi and O'Day encourage the reader to become more aware of the ways people and technology are interrelated. They draw on their empirical research in offices, libraries, schools, and hospitals to show how people can engage their own values and commitments while using technology.


Technology and Environment

Technology and Environment

Author: National Academy of Engineering

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 1989-02-01

Total Pages: 232

ISBN-13: 030904426X

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Technology and Environment is one of a series of publications designed to bring national attention to issues of the greatest importance in engineering and technology during the 25th year of the National Academy of Engineering. A "paradox of technology" is that it can be both the source of environmental damage and our best hope for repairing such damage today and avoiding it in the future. Technology and Environment addresses this paradox and the blind spot it creates in our understanding of environmental crises. The book considers the proximate causes of environmental damageâ€"machines, factories, cities, and so onâ€"in a larger societal context, from which the will to devise and implement solutions must arise. It helps explain the depth and difficulty of such issues as global warming and hazardous wastes but also demonstrates the potential of technological innovation to have a constructive impact on the planet. With a range of data and examples, the authors cover such topics as the "industrial metabolism" of production and consumption, the environmental consequences of the information era, and design of environmentally compatible technologies.


Technology and Global Change

Technology and Global Change

Author: Arnulf Grübler

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2003-10-16

Total Pages: 468

ISBN-13: 9780521543323

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This is the first book to comprehensibly describe how technology has shaped society and the environment over the last 200 years. It will be useful for researchers, as a textbook for graduate students, for people engaged in long-term policy planning in industry and government, for environmental activists, and for the wider public interested in history, technology, or environmental issues.


Technological Change and the Environment

Technological Change and the Environment

Author: Arnulf Grübler

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2010-09-30

Total Pages: 414

ISBN-13: 1136522913

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Much is written in the popular literature about the current pace of technological change. But do we have enough scientific knowledge about the sources and management of innovation to properly inform policymaking in technology dependent domains such as energy and the environment? While it is agreed that technological change does not 'fall from heaven like autumn leaves,' the theory, data, and models are deficient. The specific mechanisms that govern the rate and direction of inventive activity, the drivers and scope for incremental improvements that occur during technology diffusion, and the spillover effects that cross-fertilize technological innovations remain poorly understood. In a work that will interest serious readers of history, policy, and economics, the editors and their distinguished contributors offer a unique, single volume overview of the theoretical and empirical work on technological change. Beginning with a survey of existing research, they provide analysis and case studies in contexts such as medicine, agriculture, and power generation, paying particular attention to what technological change means for efficiency, productivity, and reduced environmental impacts. The book includes a historical analysis of technological change, an examination of the overall direction of technological change, and general theories about the sources of change. The contributors empirically test hypotheses of induced innovation and theories of institutional innovation. They propose ways to model induced technological change and evaluate its impact, and they consider issues such as uncertainty in technology returns, technology crossover effects, and clustering. A copublication o Resources for the Future (RFF) and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA).


Engineering Within Ecological Constraints

Engineering Within Ecological Constraints

Author: National Academy of Engineering

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 1996-03-22

Total Pages: 221

ISBN-13: 030917645X

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Engineering within Ecological Constraints presents a rare dialogue between engineers and environmental scientists as they consider the many technical as well as social and legal challenges of ecologically sensitive engineering. The volume looks at the concepts of scale, resilience, and chaos as they apply to the points where the ecological life support system of nature interacts with the technological life support system created by humankind. Among the questions addressed are: What are the implications of differences between ecological and engineering concepts of efficiency and stability? How can engineering solutions to immediate problems be made compatible with long-term ecological concerns? How can we transfer ecological principles to economic systems? The book also includes important case studies on such topics as water management in southern Florida and California and oil exploration in rain forests. From its conceptual discussions to the practical experience reflected in case studies, this volume will be important to policymakers, practitioners, researchers, educators, and students in the fields of engineering, environmental science, and environmental policy.


The Technological Society

The Technological Society

Author: Jacques Ellul

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2021-07-27

Total Pages: 531

ISBN-13: 0593315685

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As insightful and wise today as it was when originally published in 1954, Jacques Ellul's The Technological Society has become a classic in its field, laying the groundwork for all other studies of technology and society that have followed. Ellul offers a penetrating analysis of our technological civilization, showing how technology—which began innocuously enough as a servant of humankind—threatens to overthrow humanity itself in its ongoing creation of an environment that meets its own ends. No conversation about the dangers of technology and its unavoidable effects on society can begin without a careful reading of this book. "A magnificent book . . . He goes through one human activity after another and shows how it has been technicized, rendered efficient, and diminished in the process.”—Harper's “One of the most important books of the second half of the twentieth-century. In it, Jacques Ellul convincingly demonstrates that technology, which we continue to conceptualize as the servant of man, will overthrow everything that prevents the internal logic of its development, including humanity itself—unless we take necessary steps to move human society out of the environment that 'technique' is creating to meet its own needs.”—The Nation “A description of the way in which technology has become completely autonomous and is in the process of taking over the traditional values of every society without exception, subverting and suppressing these values to produce at last a monolithic world culture in which all non-technological difference and variety are mere appearance.”—Los Angeles Free Press


The Light-Green Society

The Light-Green Society

Author: Michael Bess

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2003-11-15

Total Pages: 404

ISBN-13: 9780226044170

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The accelerating interpenetration of nature and culture is the hallmark of the new "light-green" social order that has emerged in postwar France, argues Michael Bess in this penetrating new history. On one hand, a preoccupation with natural qualities and equilibrium has increasingly infused France's economic and cultural life. On the other, human activities have laid an ever more potent and pervasive touch on the environment, whether through the intrusion of agriculture, industry, and urban growth, or through the much subtler and more well-intentioned efforts of ecological management. The Light-Green Society limns sharply these trends over the last fifty years. The rise of environmentalism in the 1960s stemmed from a fervent desire to "save" wild nature-nature conceived as a qualitatively distinct domain, wholly separate from human designs and endeavors. And yet, Bess shows, after forty years of environmentalist agitation, much of it remarkably successful in achieving its aims, the old conception of nature as a "separate sphere" has become largely untenable. In the light-green society, where ecology and technological modernity continually flow together, a new hybrid vision of intermingled nature-culture has increasingly taken its place.