By Bran Richards (Lancaster University)
Abstract: Technologies do not function in society merely to enable human activity. Our interactions with technology influence our understanding of our world and our role in it. I suggest, therefore, that the most overlooked, and perhaps most radical, avenue to sustainability is using the transformative power of technology to our advantage, and developing strategically with an eye toward affecting a more sustainable worldview. Given the popularity and extensiveness of the Internet, I propose that it may be a suitable target for shorter-term wins toward engendering healthier orientations to technology and the planet.
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May 16, 2011 at 6:54 am
Davor
This is not a technical paper and I believe that the author does not come from an engineering background based on his/her views. This is an advocacy paper supporting Neo/Reform Luddist view of the technology and in particular the Internet with respect to its perceived link with CO2 emissions. As a solution, the author suggests what most social science researchers suggest when they discover a problem: establish an agency and use the force of rules and regulations to control the market and human behavior. I strongly disagree with the Luddist view of technology as well as the proposed solutions since I believe that using this approach the problem of the climate change will be solved in exactly the same way as the problems of poverty, hunger, illiteracy, smoking, drugs, obesity, etc. were solved… I suggest that the workshop discussion focuses on the technological rather than bureaucratic approaches to solving the problem. Believing the urgency that the author indicates, I don’t think that we have even time to attempt any bureaucratic solution. Or do we?
May 19, 2011 at 5:46 pm
Elena Pérez-Miñana
A very ambitious research which I feel is too broad to address just now. Many of the things mentioned in this paper are certainly important concerns but personally I feel there are many smaller scale problems that need to be solved first. For example, I’m not sure that it will be possible to tackle “consumerism” through technology as it is a problem with economic, social, political implications which might just be out of the scope of this workshop? The title of the WS is SW research and climate change, and the research needed to control “evil consumerism” goes much further than this. The research could be of interest if the author maybe attempted to frame it a bit more?
May 20, 2011 at 4:55 pm
carla silva
The article explains how our habits increase the technological power consumption and hence the use of natural resources. The article argues that there should be a change of habit to lessen our need for energy and begins to design systems for our needs and not our desires. This would be a good way to decrease energy consumption. But if we reduce our desires to consume unnecessary things, we will have an impact on the economy and on the capitalist world in which we live, making the solution infeasible. I think a viable solution would be compensation. For example, companies that advertise on the web should have mandatory initiatives to counteract the energy expenditure associated with their ads. I think that encouraging people to use less technology in their activities is a step backwards and goes against the area of Systems Engineering. We are able to neutralize the negative impacts brought by using technology. We should start to compensate the CO2 produced by the goods we buy. Finally, although the paper raises interesting questions about environmental consciousness and technology, it doesn’t present anything about how Software Engineering can help in reducing energy consumption. Reducing our need of technology is a very difficult task. For example, I am writing this text using the google translator tool
June 7, 2011 at 1:30 pm
Steffen Zschaler
I have found this a tricky paper to assess, and the comments that went before me seem to support this impression:
On the one hand, I can quite agree with some of the analysis of the problem, but the paper remains very vague on actual solution ideas. It is, in my opinion, not enough to simply stipulate that we need a global change in attitude. The author himself admits that this is a complex system of interwoven and mutually reinforcing influences, so where do we even start to make a difference? It would have been a much more interesting paper if it provided some concrete ideas or suggestions on this point. Could goal modelling provide a start to better understanding this problem?
On the other hand, I feel that the workshop is in danger of becoming one-sided if we include only papers with narrow technical solutions. I feel that there is a need for a discussion of whether we are indeed addressing the right problems with the technological solutions we propose or whether these technologies themselves may become part of the problem. This discussion seems to run nicely through this paper. I would hope that this would continue at the workshop as it has already started in the comments.