New Technology = New Stress

I talk a lot on technology in my Environmental Ethics class. Why? Because the human relationship with technology has a lot of bearing on the natural world. And I mean all technology--from a rock chip to nanotechnology to the technological singularity.

At any rate, I think about technology a lot. And I use it a lot. And I'm concerned about what I'm seeing.

A news report this morning addressed precautions people should take to protect their smartphones and the data stored on them. Several of the people expressed their angst at losing it or having it stolen. One person said that "If I lost my phone, my life would be over." And he was stone-faced serious.

While smartphone technology is amazing and useful, think of the extra layer of stress it and other mobile devices have added to our lives. I stress enough over my old, cheap cell phone. I also stress over losing my cracked flashdrive, my old laptop and the list goes on. As we've become more wired (or wireless) and integrated, our genetic "fight or flight" reactions have found new outlets.

I agree with Edward O. Wilson and a number of others in that though we have become very technologically advanced as a species, our brains are still wired pretty much the same as they were when we were hunter-gathers. Instead of "Oh, crap! A lion!," now it's "Oh, crap, I can't find my phone!" Or someone has hacked by Facebook account, my bank account--the list goes on. The bad thing for our bodies is that the stress response, which increases your heart rate, muscle tension and releases cortisol into your bloodstream, is good for running away from a lion, but not so good for your when you are frantically looking in the couch cushions at Starbucks for you new smartphone when you've got a webinar to conduct in 5 minutes.

I'm not a Luddite by any means. Humans are a technological species, and technology in and of itself is morally exempt (at least for now). As a matter of fact, it's my hypothesis that it can be viewed as a force of nature in its own right. But I think we need to live as "intentional species." We are not morally exempt. We need to make conscious choices as to how we utilize technology and not forget our connections to the carbon-based world. I'm finding myself increasingly a student of Kevin Kelly. I think we can all learn a lot from this quote--I know I have.

Kevin makes some great insights into the role of technology in our lives, its role in nature and how it can hopefully lead to a better future for all life in this great talk on TED. It's worth a watch. Isn't technology great?

Kevin Kelly quote and image is from a Lifehacker  article by the same name (and it is excellent).

Just because you told me not to...rebelling against environmental ethics

Insightful post from Treehugger by Sami Grover, from Carborro, NC.

What worries me more, however, is the deliberate attempts by vested interests to frame the environmental debate in terms of freedom versus responsibility, or authoritarianism versus liberty.

The Anthropocene: A New Earth Epoch?

National Geographic has a good piece on the concept of the "Anthropocene," the idea that human influence has pushed the earth from the Holocene period into a new epoch marked by modification of the planet through the by-products of our technology.

Here's is a quote from part of it:


The word "Anthropocene" was coined by Dutch chemist Paul Crutzen about a decade ago. One day Crutzen, who shared a Nobel Prize for discovering the effects of ozone-depleting compounds, was sitting at a scientific conference. The conference chairman kept referring to the Holocene, the epoch that began at the end of the last ice age, 11,500 years ago, and that—officially, at least—continues to this day.

"'Let's stop it,'" Crutzen recalls blurting out. "'We are no longer in the Holocene. We are in the Anthropocene.'

An example of "religious cornucopianism"?

Rep. Mike Beard (R-Shakopee) is pushing for more new coal-fired power plants in Minnesota, but the Shakopee Republican is undeterred by reports about the effects of carbon-emitting energy production on global warming. His reason: He believes God will prevent the planet from running out of fossil fuels while also eliminating the harms associated with climate change.

Read more here...