1st Edition

Governing Technology in the Quest for Sustainability on Earth

By Dain Bolwell Copyright 2018
    306 Pages
    by Routledge

    306 Pages
    by Routledge



    Governing Technology in the Quest for Sustainability on Earth explores how human technologies can be managed to ensure the long-term sustainability of our species and of other life forms with which we share this world. It analyses human impact, the discourses of environmentalism and issues of economics, history and science. As these variables are complex, drawing on issues from the social, physical and life sciences as well as the humanities, Dain Bolwell uses an interdisciplinary approach to investigate these concepts and their related public policies.




    Exploring three major existing and emerging technologies – chemical herbicides, nuclear-electric power generation, and robotics and artificial intelligence – the book demonstrates the multifaceted and complicated nature of the grand challenges we face and draws out the measures required to effect sustainability in the wider political sphere.




    Exploring how we can govern technology most effectively to ensure a long term and sustainable future, this book will be of great interest to students and researchers of environmental studies, science and technology and environmental law and policy.

    Chapter 1. Introduction   



    Chapter 2. The concept of sustainability



    Chapter 3. Impact



    Chapter 4. Population



    Chapter 5. Affluence



    Chapter 6. Technology



    Chapter 7. Options

    Chapter 8. Technology and governance

    Chapter 9. Case study: Glyphosate



    Chapter 10. Case study: Nuclear-electric power



    Chapter 11. Case study: Robotics and artificial intelligence



    Chapter 12. Case study summary



    Chapter 13. Alternative visions



    Chapter 14. Conclusion: the Owl of Minerva



     

    Biography

    Dain Bolwell is an associate with the Institute for the Study of Social Change in the Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Tasmania. Dain is a former international consultant, author and editor with particular expertise in labour and development fields. He has lived and worked in the Central Pacific as advisor to the Kiribati Minister for Labour, in East and West Africa for Public Services International and in Cambodia, China and Geneva for the United Nations.