Don't Worry?

Posted by Shirley Siluk Gregory Feb 3, 2007

The solution to a technology problem is not always more technology. Sometimes, the best way to solve a technological challenge is to go back to square one and eliminate the inherent problem with the original technology.

Case in point: chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and the hole they were creating in the ozone layer. People didn't reverse the tendency of CFCs to thin the ozone layer by devising orbiting CFC vacuums to suck up the offending gases before they reached the ozone layer. No, the global community at large agreed to phase out the use of CFCs and move toward other aerosol propellents and coolants that didn't threaten to punch a cancer-causing hole in the atmosphere.

On the flip side, consider the abhorrent "solution" some scientists claim to have found to the threat of mad cow disease. Rather than simply eliminate completely the feeding of other cow and animal parts to cows, which are natural grass-eaters, not meat-eaters, some researchers say the answer is genetically engineered cows whose genes are no longer capable of producing the prions that cause mad cow disease.

Which is why I found the advice proffered in a recent Inc. Magazine column on predicting the future so galling, wrong-headed and downright dangerous:

"Don't worry!" the caption chirpily reassures readers, "Today's rapid rate of change means that problems like global warming may be solved faster than we expect."

Now I understand the reasoning behind the column: that future technologies barely foreseen today could eliminate our current greenhouse gas-spewing dependence on fossil fuels. That might be true, but if it takes only 10 quick years to reach that point -- wildly optimistic, given how slowly the wheels of research and development turn -- that's still 10 more years of us pumping damaging tons of carbon dioxide into the air, which climate experts say will linger and do harm for decades to come.

A greener lifestyle today, on the other hand, will help stave off those increases starting now and give us time to work on longer-term solutions. "Don't worry" is hardly the message we should be getting right now.