How does new technology make it easier for humans to create a lifestyle that sustains the environment? 3,000 years ago, human beings discovered coal and began to burn it in order to get heat and energy, which contributed to people’s lives a lot. However, it brought kinds of problems to the environment. During the process of burning, it produces carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide and smoke. Those products may lead to acid rain and global warming that are harmful to the environment. Nevertheless, with the development of technologies, renewable energy sources and green technologies have been created.
Thus, most people don’t use coal anymore and the environment has been protected. New technology changes people’s lives every second. How does new technology contributes to sustainable environment on earth? There are four major aspects for new technology to make environment sustainable: it can help people explore sources of renewable energy, it can help people solve pollution problems, it can help people balance the ecosystem, it can encourage people to devote themselves to the science for environment.
The first contribution for sustainable environment by new technology is helping people to explore sources of renewable energy. This means that with the help of new technology, people can make full use of natural sources to create green and renewable energy that people cannot image nor realize before. Such as tidal power, wave power, solar power, wind power and so on. According to Jamie Frater (2009), “These sources of energy provide an alternate ‘cleaner’ source of energy, helping to negate the effects of certain forms of pollution.
All of these power generation techniques can be described as renewable since they are not depleting any resources to create the energy. ” For instance, the wind power, people set wind turbines to transform wind energy into electricity or mechanical energy. In the process of creating energy, there is no consumption of resources. It can works only if there is wind. More importantly, when wind transformed to another kind of energy, there is no pollution produced. Because of the new technology, people explored wind power and it contributes to the sustainable environment.
There is no doubt that people will keep using new technology to explore more renewable energy to sustain the environment. The second contribution for sustainable environment by new technology is helping people to develope new techniques to solve pollution problems. As we all know, to sustain the environment, people should not only implement energy efficient, but also measure the pollution environmentally. Thus, new techniques of solving pollution problems were created. For example, the ammonia mitigation technology.
According to Saqib Mukhtar and Amir M. Samani (2012), “The generation, dispersion, and deposition of NH3 can contribute to air pollution, soil and water contamination, and pungent odors. ” To solve these problems, people made a research and it has shown that an acid-filled, gas-permeable membrane (GPM) system can remove NH3 from liquid manure (Ammonia mitigation technology for sustainable environmental stewardship, 2012). In consequence, after its removal, the captured NH3 will not pollute the environment anymore and it can even be used as fertilizer in agriculture.
Therefore, new technology helps people develope new techniques to solve pollution problems that sustains the environment. The third contribution for sustainable environment by new technology is helping people to create new systems to balance the ecosystem. The survival of our planet relies on a balanced ecosystem. The more we destroy the habitats of animals and plants, the more our ecosystem looses its balance. Therefore, people are trying to keep the balance of environment by new systems.
In the article “Technology That Will Help the Environment”, AngelaC mentions that “Scientists are currently addressing the issue of deforestation through the use of robotics in the rain forests. These robots or ‘treebots’ are individual nodes in a Networked Infomechanical System (NIMS) and are being used to monitor tree growth, light, humidity and carbon dioxide levels to detect changes and provide data that allows scientists to predict how climate changes will affect the future of our forests.”
That means, scientists can predict the effects of climate on forests through this kind of robotics, and by those predictions, scientists can take several measures to protect the forests. This series of process balanced the ecosystem indirectly. In summary, with the help of new technology, people create new systems that can keep the ecosystem balance so that it is helpful to the sustainable environment. Last but not least, new technology can encourage people contribute to science and environment.
In the news “Promoting Environmentally Friendly Technology”, Joes Couture informs that the pair went a bike trip to promote technologies after they graduated from university. They stopped at 29 high schools along the way and tried to enpower students to think about science and engineering as a future career path. The reason why they did these is that they have been enpowered by the technology when they were at university. Thus, new technology can encourage people to promote environmentally technology so that more and more persons with abilities may devote themselves to science.
This may result in that more and more advanced technologies can be developed, and these advanced technologies further stimulate more people to join in the groups. In general, new technology can make a a virtuous circle for sustainable environment. In conclusion, new technology can help people to explore sources of renewable energy, it can help people to solve pollution problems, it can help people balance the ecosystem, it can encourage people to make contributions to science and environment. With the new technology, people can create a sustainable environment.
