Emerging Sustainable Technologies

It is often puzzling to contemplate why so many brilliant and sustainable technologies have gone nowhere - relegated to the scrap heap of creative but not financed discoveries. It is not because they are low-tech, low-cost, appropriate, and sustainable. These reasons would mean we HAVE to promote them. It must be because the existing technology (that is unsustainable, high-tech etc) is owned by companies with political clout!

In this time of reckoning, the emerging sustainable technologies are exactly what we need. We need sustainable technologies in almost all areas of our lives including:

• energy generation
• water use and recycling
• building construction
• health
• food production
• transport
• industry
• commerce

Many of the new scientific and technological advances need careful consideration and carry new social and ethical responsibility in order to direct their application in ways that strengthen efforts for achieving the goals of sustainable development.

What of the new science of 'biomimicry'? This science imitates or takes inspiration from the designs and processes in nature to design products and processes. For example, the blue mussel byssus is the material the mussel uses to attach itself to surfaces such as rocks. This material is a very strong adhesive that sets underwater, doesn't need a primer, or a catalyst to work and that eventually breaks down or degrades after use. Biomimicry could lead to surgeons operating without sutures, an alternative to plastics using time-released coating for disposable biobased cups and cutlery which would eventually degrade, allowing the degradable material underneath to be composted.

With biomimicry, as with all new technologies, we must examine them not only from a material and technology perspective but also from a social and political perspective to ensure these new technologies will enhance the biological and social diversity, and not just lead to monocultures and concentration of power as has happened with most science and technology to date.

We need new technologies to eliminate poverty and achieve economic development whilst advancing social priorities and protecting the environment. We need new technologies to replace current unsustainable technologies.

Check out these resources and links.