CNN.com - Environmentalists: Nanotechnology risky - September 8, 2002

Of course... I've found that the difference between myself and this subset of my fellow environmentalists is that they think of technology as causing problems, while I tend to look at technology as a two-edged sword, causing problems and solutions. Nanotech may create new types of contaminants which will be difficult to remove with current technology. I'll grant that. But it seems to me that it's a problem that will lead to its own solution, that what nanotech creates nanotech will remove.

The Luddite elements of the environmental movement can't accept that, because it is dogma to them that science and technology only make things worse. Consider this group, an "environmentalist" organization that is based upon opposition to genetically modified food. They only see that GM food could be a health concern, plus they have a superstitious dread of interference with the "natural" order. That every plant or animal in question is the result of thousands of years of human tinkering through selection and cross-breeding, not to mention billions of years of evolution, doesn't enter their minds. Nor do they realize that higher-yield plants, and plants that can live in areas made marginal through overfarming, would potentially keep people from having to destroy what's left of the world's wilderness just to feed themselves. Or that making grains more nutritious might make vegetarianism (for those attracted to it) more doable. They only see the difficulties, not the opportunities.

Luddite environmentalists think technology will destroy the Earth. Technophile environmentalists like myself -- and I think we are the majority, if (to use a phrase of uncomfortable origin) a silent one -- believe technology will save it. Mankind has never lived in harmony with nature. But now at least we can see the effects of what we're doing, and start to correct problems. And I think nanotech could be the magic bullet that lets us repair what we've damaged. At the least, it should lessen the footprint left in the Earth by the weight of six billion people.