Technological Fix Flashcards
Examples of technological fix to deal with nature
GM crops – halophytes in Bangladesh
Greenhouses - UK
Desalination – Arab countries such as UAE
Cloud Seeding (Silver iodine) – UAE
‘Luddite’
Those who oppose the introduction of technology – Amish
Development of technology
- Decreased life cycles of technology
- Affluent countries invest more in educations – majority of R&D is in Western Europe, North America and Japan – receive high income from royalties and license fees
- PlayStation – Sony in Japan
- IPhone – Apple in USA
- Sky – British
- Ferrari – Italy
Digital Access Index
Includes availability of infrastructure, affordability, education, quality of ICT services and Internet access
Sweden 2003 – 0.85
UK 2003 – 0.77
Niger 2003 – 0.04
Implications for those who lack access to basic technology
- 36 million adults and 2.1 million children are living with aids in Africa
- 95% of those who have the disease are those in the developing world
Worldwide HIV rates
- 18.5% of South Africans – 2007
- No available data for Middle East countries
- In 2014, an estimated 44,073 people were diagnosed with HIV. The annual number of new diagnoses declined by 19% from 2005 to 2014.
- 2015 India – 2,100,000
- In Kenya and Zambia the life expectancy has dropped by four years due to HIV
- Decrease in HIV rates is due to a mixture of biomedical (condoms, treatment of STDs, protection of blood supply, voluntary HIV testing) and behavioural treatments (Empowerment of women, prevention of unprotected sex and needle sharing)
- The HIV pandemic is most severe in Sub-Saharan Africa. Over 60% of all people living with HIV reside within the region.
- Religion is a stronger voice in developing countries than health workers and do not condone the use of contraception
Inequality of technology - Political
Politics – Ideology – North Korea
• Televisions only receive government-controlled frequencies
• Mobiles were banned in 2004
• The Committee to Protect Journalists ranked North Korea No.1 for censorship
• North Korea is not connected to the web
• There is a small, monitored connection to major universities created by the OpenNet Initiative
• There are a few ‘information technology stores” (internet cafes) but they are too expensive for the average citizen to access
Reasons for inequality to technology
- Wealth – afford the infrastructure or access to sophisticated hardware or GM crops
- Education – if the population can use the technology
- Environmental determination – at the mercy of nature – remote regions
- Patent law – high amount means more access – Europe, America, Japan – creates wealth
- Resources
- Religion – e.g. Catholicism bans contraception
- Public opposition e.g. GM crops not grown in UK – importance of media – public opposition to Nuclear Power
- Politics – North Korean government banned private phones or mobiles since 2004
In 2002, 312 thousand patents were granted around the world, over a third in Japan and just under a third in the USA.
Leapfrogging
Allows a country to move from no telephone service to move to a full mobile network with no massive investment in telephone cabling.
Afghanistan – 72% of Afghans are now covered by a mobile telephone signal, whereas only 1% has access to a fixed telephone access. After the 1979 Russian invasion Afghanistan is littered with unexploded bombs and mines so laying landlines is not possible.
Leapfrogging means that countries can bridge the inequality gap much faster and cheaper; lower income countries therefore can quickly be put on par with HICs. GM halophyte rice from HICs has been transferred to Bangladesh to increase primary productivity.
What are the unintended impacts of technology? Example
Externalities
Example: Facebook started as a network for a Harvard student to keep in touch with his friends but in the third quarter of 2016, Facebook had 1.79 billion monthly active users.
Negatives:
• Cyber bullying
• Identity Theft
• Employee Facebook checks
DDT
From 1939 DDT was used to control malarial mosquitos and was quickly accepted as an agricultural pesticide. In 1955 the WHO started a global malaria eradication programme based on the use of DDT. In 1962 however Rachel Carson published Silent Spring, which blamed DDT for a growing a toll of wildlife deaths through the process of biomagnification. DDT was banned in the USA in 1972 and in the UK in 1984.
Positives of DDT
The program was initially highly successful, eliminating the disease in Taiwan, much of the Caribbean, the Balkans, parts of northern Africa, the northern region of Australia, and a large swath of the South Pacific and dramatically reducing mortality in Sri Lanka and India.
Negatives of DDT
DDT is a persistent organic pollutant that is extremely hydrophobic and strongly absorbed by soils, meaning that the roots of plants quickly absorb it, this process is worsened when it is sprayed directly on crops and plants causing biomagnification
Ways to make the polluter pay?
Command and control – laws enforced (has to be appropriate)
Market-based – where governments introduce taxes to reduce use
- Money taken from polluter pays should be used to counter air pollution, providing public transport or subsidising public transport
Example of polluter pays
Cars – CO2 emissions – 2003 London Congestion and in 2008 the Low Emission Zone (charges high polluting lorries with diesel engines weighing over 200 tonnes £200 a day to enter the Greater London area. From July 2010 this include buses and coaches weighing over 3.5 tonnes
