Even well-intentioned innovations have existentiall threatening side-effects.

The philosopher Martin Heidegger saw most clearly that modern technology has its own point of view which is completely separate from any other structure of human aims and purposes. The critical feature of modern technology is its willingness to treat anything as a resource to be reordered in the furtherance of other aims, usually its own. Heidegger, in his essay “The Question Concerning Technology,” concludes that modern technology is an independent force in human existence. It builds a new and incompatible order on top of what was there, primarily in order to extract and store energy for later uses (Heidegger, 1955, pp. 14-17).

The point of view of modern technology regards everything as a potential resource, as “standing reserve” to be used or reused later in other related processes. A forest has status only as a timber resource. Land itself is only a resource for the building industry. Even human beings themselves become “human resources” from this point of view. Or they become “consumers.” Or ill people become a “supply of patients for a clinic”. Many distinctive modern technologies embody this notion of “standing reserve” in their very conception. Thus, electric power, whether in the form of available current or batteries, is always entirely standing reserve, on hand for potential use. This way of looking at things, insofar as it ignores the previous pattern of processes, uses, and ends, is inherently “violent” in its effects on those processes, especially concerning the environment.

Once modern technology is properly conceptualized, examples abound all around us to confirm its status as an independent incompatible force for the rest of the environment. Extractive industries tend to be extremely destructive to the rest of the environment. It is almost a daily occurrence to read of the latest oil spill and its destructive consequences. Coal mining uses a technique called mountaintop removal. The result is a devastated, unusable landscape. Chemical petroleum-based pesticides threaten the extinction of species like the Monarch butterfly and as a side effect cause an increase in cancer in human beings. These extractive industries are typically producing the materials to be used in the processes of modern technology. Somewhat more indirect examples such as deforestation and genetic engineering will be discussed in a later section.

Technologists very often view technology as a neutral means. An anonymous reviewer of one of my writings put it thus: “What counts is how technology is being applied, and for which purposes.” This statement has some merit for classical technology but has no merit for modern technology. One consequence of the statement is that technology itself can’t be assessed. One way to see the disastrous consequences of this view is to apply it to an ecosystem-threatening application of technology. Chlorofluorocarbons[CFCs] were carefully tested before being released into the environment. It was an unintended and unforeseeable side effect of the application that produced the ecosystem-threatening thinning of the ozone layer. There was nothing wrong with the application. So if applications are all that needs to be considered, there is nothing further to be considered and we must let the ozone layer be destroyed.

Chlorofluorocarbons and their effect on the ozone layer ought to be more than sufficient to put us on notice that with the best of intentions developers of new technology can find themselves with world-destroying consequences. A “safe” synthetic compound, chlorofluorocarbon (CFC), developed in the 1940s for use in air conditioners and aerosol cans turned out to be inert except in the upper atmosphere, where it destroys the ozone layer which protects us from ultraviolet radiation. The ozone layer protects all life against excessive ultraviolet radiation, and when it is damaged or destroyed the surface of the planet on which we and all animals and plants live is subjected to dangerous levels of ultraviolet. There are two disturbing implications: (1) There does not seem to be any way that this result of normal chemical engineering could have been predicted; (2) All life has evolved under the protection of the ozone layer; this sudden a change has unpredictable consequences for all life forms in the ecosystem (Asimov & Pohl, 1991, pp. 91-110).

Global warming and climate change are another global conflict between modern technology and the environment. Global warming is an overall effect caused by the increase of levels of socalled “greenhouse gases,” of which carbon dioxide is the most prevalent. They are called “greenhouse” gases because they increase the ability of the earth's atmosphere to retain heat, just like the panes of glass in a greenhouse. Yet carbon dioxide at the local level is nontoxic and the levels which produce global warming have no impact on any kind of life.1 The increased levels of greenhouse gases are the by-product of modern technology. Carbon dioxide is the most prevalent gas, with much of it coming from the burning of fossil fuels in the internal combustion engines of cars, buses and trucks. The size of temperature increase produced by the increased carbon dioxide is difficult to predict, but the size of the increase would normally happen over tens of thousands of years. As of 2014, the average air temperature has increased 3 degrees Fahrenheit since 1970. One current consequence is storms of increasing severity. Warmer atmosphere holds more water vapor, which supplies more energy for storms and rainfall. Hundred-year storms and floods have become common (Hansen, 2009, p. 253).

Severe strains on plants and animals are also happening. Polar bears are famously losing essential parts of their environment, that is, frozen ocean. Some animals can move to more congenial colder places when the atmosphere warms, but trees cannot move with anywhere near the speed necessary to cope with global warming. And some animals and plants on mountains run out of space--they are at the top of the mountain with no further higher cooler places to move to (Wilson, 2002, p. 69).

Human-caused global warming, because it directly affects human economics, has aroused contrary argumentation based on the premise that human economic activity cannot possibly affect the entire environment. This is probably wishful thinking. Our atmosphere's composition is not a given; the amount of carbon actually in the atmosphere is about the same as that present in the totality of living beings (the “biomass”). Consequently, adding the carbon locked up in fossils in large quantities is likely to have an impact. In Figure 1, the black arrows indicate carbon exchanges exclusive of human beings. The red arrows are carbon added by human activity. As you will notice in Figure 1, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (597 billion tons) is one quarter of the amount contained in soil and vegetation (2300 billion tons). But soil contains about 1600 billion tons, leaving 610 billion tons contained in vegetation, about the same as that in the atmosphere. Consequently, human activity adding 6.4 billion tons per year will make an impact. In 20 years, that would be an extra 128 billion tons of carbon dioxide.

These two examples should make it clear that even if we can resolve global problems like these (likely with the aid of technology) there is no reason to believe that other equally difficult problems will not arise concerning our ecological support system. This is the reason why a correct diagnosis of the nature of modern technology and its place in human activity are essential. The critical point is that the world-destroying consequences of technology cannot be limited to the two we have experienced so far.

The issue of human-caused climate change has caused corporations whose (short-term) interests are affected to distribute not only false information about a lack of scientific consensus but also false scientific information2 , rejected by 95% of climate scientists (Doran & Zimmerman, 2009)

A recent discovery is that the large fossil fuel corporation Exxon-Mobil has actually believed that human-caused climate is occurring and still spent tens of millions disseminating information skeptical about climate change.(McKibben, 2015) Time reporter Bryan Walsh found a concerted effort by large conservative corporations and other organizations to discredit what is in fact a scientific consensus. He observed that the tactics were similar to those used by tobacco companies against claims that smoking causes lung cancer (Walsh, 2011).

Can any use of technology be completely compatible with the ecosystem? Clearly modern technology has compatibility problems. But what about earlier technology? We think of agricultural technology as a paradigm of nature itself. However, the classical technology of cities has always collapsed, normally through adopting practices which were incompatible with sustaining their populations. So it seems that even this technology has compatibility problems.

Modern technology does not contain within itself a way out of our conflicts with nature. Indeed, proponents of technology tend to argue that for any problem, there is a further technological fix. But such fixes take us farther and farther away from any recognizably sustainable world. Not only do we end up existing for the sake of our technology, but the technological apparatus becomes increasingly susceptible to catastrophic failure.

Modern technology, though powerful and useful, also contains great dangers in unforeseen and unforeseeable side effects. Thus to minimize serious harm to the ecosystem, new uses of modern technology should be as carefully investigated as possible. Any potential for harm should be evaluated, if possible, in advance of deployment of the technology. However, our actual practice is the exact opposite. The initiation and deployment of new technology is almost entirely the responsibility of corporations. And corporations are motivated to downplay side effects on the ecosystem or even work toward denial of the very existence of side effects.