Contribution Of Technology On Sustainability - 1595 Words

Contribution of technology to Sustainability Introduction Our dependence on technology to solve environmental problems around the word is really significant, owing to the universal ignorance to make the social, economic and political changes that are deemed to be necessary to reduce growth in production and consumption. Yet again the amount, kind and nature of technological changes required to counteract the growing environmental damage caused by increases in production, consumption and other humanly activities would have to be fairly dramatic. But the question remains, can such a dramatic and radical redesign, structuring and reshaping of our technological systems occur without causing drastic social changes and will it not require a†¦show more content†¦Following fig1.1 indicates the onset of industrialization along with major industrial development and their impact on carbon emission worldwide. In 1890 the Diesel engine became available and was used in ships, locomotives and also in automobiles which directly influenced the rate of carbon emission from fossil fuels. The above fig1.2 indicates that the temperature rose faster from 1975 to now than from 1880 to 1975, and so did CO2. It also indicates that the temperature has been highest recently and so has CO2. A clear relation between Technological development (industrialisation), Carbon emission and Global temperature can be established from the above facts. It is evident that advances in technology have largely been responsible for creating our unsustainable, globalised economy, some of the major technological development in human history has have impacted environment adversely. But as much as technology is making things difficult, it also offers some powerful solutions for sustainability. From the 1970s to 1990s the increase of carbon emissions decreased slightly, in part due to the construction and operation of large nuclear power plants worldwide. At the same time, fossil-fired equipment became more efficient and natural gas-fired combined-cycle power plants with high efficiency levels went into operation. In