(Foreword to Using Emerging Technologies to Address Global Risks , October 2011) This is a question that often comes up in our dealings with global policy makers who spend huge sums on scientific research while simultaneously being fearful of its consequences. Many believe that it is somehow important for the economy in an undefined and non-quantifiable manner, or that it is some …
The Most Effective Method of Public Engagement With Emerging Technologies – An Ice Cream Van!
In that last ten years of nanotechnology just about every kind of public engagement exercise conceivable has been tried, There have been public lectures howled down by anti GMO protesters, focus groups who often come to the conclusion that nanotech is OK once its benefits are are explained, and a series of obtuse and patronising projects aimed at explaining nanotechnology …
The Long Journey From Nanotechnology To Emerging Technologies
Two and a half years ago I was invited to join the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on nanotechnologies, as part of “the worlds largest brainstorming”. The chief reason for having a nanotechnology council at all was that nanotech had been identified as a global risk in a WEF report (thank you Prince Charles), so we found ourselves among …
Antibacterial socks may boost greenhouse emissions shock!!
Ever since someone choked a mouse with carbon nanotubes in an attempt to prove their toxicity, people have been running round giving huge doses of nanomaterials to everything from bacteria to fish. Of course the huge doses involved, far in excess of anything that would be encountered in the real world, could be equally well used to prove that bananas …
You Be Doomed If You Want To Be, I’m Engineering A Way Out
Professor Frank Fenner, who helped to wipe out smallpox, predicts humans will probably be extinct within 100 years, because of overpopulation, environmental destruction and climate change according to Physorg.com, but I’m not too sure. According to The Australian Fenner said that climate change is only at its beginning, but is likely to be the cause of our extinction. “We’ll undergo the …
Redesigning Technologies For Risk Avoidance With The World Economic Forum
I spent last weekend in a rather hot Doha (Qatar), surrounded by Emirs, Queens, Princes and Prime Ministers at the World Economic Forums Global Redesign Initiative meeting. It’s an organization I have been involved with for the past six years, through both the Technology Pioneers program and the Global Redesign Initiative. As the world changes at an ever increasing pace, …
Talking Cleantech In Melbourne
The Sir Mark Olifant Cleantech conference has been a lot of fun so far, from Eric Isaac’s opening overview of the the issues (and solutions) to Stefan Hajkowicz’s analysis of megatrends that will shape our future technology development. I’m still struck by how much cleantech seems to be focused in a few rather obvious areas, something which effectively prices a …
Eyjafjallajokull Ash Plume – Who’s Doing The Science?
How long do we have to wait before economics get the better of health and safety concerns, and more importantly who is doing the science? I have no idea if it is being done, but after six days of the no fly zone I hope that someone, of preferably a number of different someones are flying balloons, propellor planes, drones …
Eyjafjallajokull – Bad for Travel but Great for Science
While the eruption of Eyjafjallajokull in Iceland is bad news for some people, it is actually quite interesting from an emerging technologies point of view, and bordering on fascinating if, like me, you somehow managed to shoehorn a big chunk of geology and geomorphology into you education (It’s a frightening thought, but I could have ended up as a geographer!) as well as …
Geoengineering – Engineering an All Purpose Political Smokescreen?
There’s nothing like the mention of Geoengineering to get environmental groups even madder than putting a wasps nest down their trousers and beating them with a cricket bat, and for good reason. The idea that we could do something about climate change that didn’t involve re-engineering the political system would mean that we don’t have to live in caves, grow …
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