All across the world, entrepreneurs and business moguls are seeking to promote an ethos of environmental consciousness into their respective enterprises.
Companies everywhere are building sustainable practices into their business models and utilizing the latest technologies in order to reduce their carbon footprints.
Some have even brought in a motivational event speaker to discuss the importance of our natural ecosystems in supporting the life cycles of the Earth. As technology advances, so too will our ability to counteract the damages wrought upon the environment from the industrial age. Here are the top 5 ways you can expect technology to help the environment in the coming years:
Biotechnology will create newer models of genetic engineering.
These new practices will allow agriculture scientists to harvest crops use less fertilizer and water. Not only will this reduce water waste and the environmental damage and toxicity of the land, it will allow crops to be more nutrient-dense.
The worldwide web to the rescue.
Wireless Internet and advanced technological applications such as retina interfaces will cut down on our tree decimation and forest clear-cutting and will reduce the need for the energy used to manufacture ink and paper. The Internet element is obvious: the growth of the web is already dramatically cutting back on paper usage. Retina interfaces involves future display systems that will also cut down on the need for physical documents like faxes and snail mail.
More responsible manufacturing.
Biodegradable and recyclable materials will become more prevalent as companies which specialize in sustainable and green products will be incentivized. This will reduce the use of non-biodegradable plastic and other materials whose manufacturing tasks the environment with emissions.
New “smart” technology.
Smart tech will advance to the point that filters will be able to automatically calibrate themselves to effectively treat water. Smart technology will also promote overall better environmental policies. The coming energy smart grid, for example, is expected to utilize wind and solar power to more efficiently generate energy for the world’s cities. And smart appliances will reduce the average household’s energy use.
Cars will get even more eco-friendly.
Car manufacturing will progress to include significantly less steel and more composites of materials like aluminum, magnesium, and titanium. Fuel efficiency will also progress, allowing cars to reach 80 miles per gallon. Hybrid and electric cars will become the norm, as will fuel-cell vehicles, neat ethanol vehicles, natural gas vehicles and automobiles which run on clean diesel and gasohol.
Expect a wide variety of technology advancements in the coming years geared toward generating less adverse affects on the environment. These changes will run the whole gamut of society, from your average household to large corporations.
About Karen Maskall
Technology is becoming more advanced and its good to see companies trying to become more eco friendly. More eco friendly cars are also getting launched in the market and its a good sign. Companies has to become more responsible because its a fact that the manufacturing units manufactures wastes as well.
So true Dr. Suarez.
The more is made the more is wasted. Therefore as is often said the key to living sustainably is to produce less and make it all more efficient and sustainable too.
We are fast approaching what is called “the end of growth”… it’s an incredible concept and maybe our only chance for new beginnings.
Good Post! Hopefully the biggest thing we will see from technology is a way power the planet without having to burn oil/gas/etc. A truly renewable energy source would be a game changer if it could be figured out.
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Bring the renewable energy sources and game changers on then…. AND FAST!
Agreed Karen, I think there is a lot of potential in solar, safer nuclear, and wind power. I believe I read somewhere that solar is only like 20% efficient right now. If that could be improved to over 50%, solar could be much more economically feasible.
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All this biotech is moving too fast these days. It is hard to keep up with all this technology anymore. When do you think all this biotech will slow down or stop? Do you think people will eventually want to go back to the old way of things like no more computers, televisions, light bulbs? Maybe going eco for everything around us will help us to slow down a bit. Thank you for this article.
now that would make a real difference wouldnt it Adam? We all tend to be working to hard and too fast and this can cause many stress related health problems too. The internet might have a role to play but for so many it is taking over their lives isn’t it? I see people who just so addicted that they cannot bear to go out walking without their phones constantly mailing and texting and of course social networking.
Of all the social injustices in our world none of them, not a single one, will be overcome by advancing technology alone just as no social problems will arise of the same making. Technology is not going to consider our consumption based society for us, it is not going to make us feel the impacts we are having on our biosphere or produce a society that refuses to go to war with each other, these things some technologies may better enable us to understand and communicate about but in the end we as human beings will have to contemplate these issues ourselves.
http://socialrebirth.org/technology-is-a-tool-not-a-solution
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