Collective Action Step 9:
"New technology is useful, but it's inefficient and ugly; it knows it'll be obsolete by lunchtime tomorrow, so it has no incentive to be anything else." --Tom Holt
Keep in mind that these new technologies will most likely work best if they appropriately align and harmonize with the planet's natural systems rather than try to overwhelm, dominate, and control those natural systems. Failure to think this way in the past is a significant part of why we are in this crisis now.
There is a special nave for the best new technologies to use. It is the term appropriate technology. Please click here for the definition of what appropriate technology means in terms of our future.
One area that we urgently need a better technology solution is in finding a new way to clear land or prepare it for the next harvest other than burning it. It is estimated that each hectare of land burned produces the same carbon pollution as 6,000 cars. Now multiply that times the billion-plus hectares of forest and cropland burned each year, and you begin to see the destructive impact on atmospheric carbon that could be mitigated with new technology solutions.
Among other things, use new technologies to help create an affordable and sustainable abundance of energy for all by applying the principles of the Third Industrial Revolution in Jeremy Rifkin's new book The Zero Marginal Cost Society: The Internet of Things, The Collaboration Commons, and The Eclipse of Capitalism. This is another inspiring and motivating must-read book for anyone serious about Sustainable Prosperity because it can help create an affordable abundance for all.
At this point please see our position paper on using technology and new technologies wisely and safely in conjunction with biological and social systems. It contains important warnings and caveats in the use of new technologies and about the dangerous techno-optimism that sometimes surrounds their promise.
To learn more about the collective action steps of Sustainable Prosperity in this online booklet, click the next link to the bottom right.