- Care of the environment against technological impact

Technology provides an understanding, and an appreciation for the world around us.
Most modern technological processes produce unwanted byproducts in addition to the desired products, which is known as industrial waste and pollution. While most material waste is re-used in the industrial process, many forms are released into the environment, with negative environmental side effects, such as pollution and lack of sustainability. Different social and political systems establish different balances between the value they place on additional goods versus the disvalues of waste products and pollution. Some technologies are designed specifically with the environment in mind, but most are designed first for economic or ergonomic effects. Historically, the value of a clean environment and more efficient productive processes has been the result of an increase in the wealth of society, because once people are able to provide for their basic needs, they are able to focus on less-tangible goods such as clean air and water.
The effects of technology on the environment are both obvious and subtle. The more obvious effects include the depletion of nonrenewable natural resources (such as petroleum, coal, ores), and the added pollution of air, water, and land. The more subtle effects include debates over long-term effects (e.g., global warming, deforestation, natural habitat destruction, coastal wetland loss.)
Each wave of technology creates a set of waste previously unknown by humans: toxic waste, radioactive waste, electronic waste.
One of the main problems is the lack of an effective way to remove these pollutants on a large scale expediently. In nature, organisms "recycle" the wastes of other organisms, for example, plants produce oxygen as a by-product of photosynthesis, oxygen-breathing organisms use oxygen to metabolize food, producing carbon dioxide as a by-product, which plants use in a process to make sugar, with oxygen as a waste in the first place. No such mechanism exists for the removal of technological wastes.

Technology can either be efficient and respectful with the environment, or efficient and dirty (or even not efficient), a problem which leads to the destruction of our planet.

News

-GMOs: Researchers debate the healthy safety of genetically modified foods

Seventy percent of items in American grocery stores contain genetically modified organisms (GMOs) – ingredients that have been scientifically engineered in laboratories to enhance certain traits such as insect, disease and water resistance.        
“Genetic engineering is a recent technique that involves being able to take genetic material from one organism and put it into another when the two wouldn’t normally be cross-compatible,” said Margaret Smith, associate director for the Cornell University Agricultural Experiment Station.
There are four major genetically modified crops: corn, soy bean, cotton and canola.  According to Smith, this type of technology can be useful.
“We're facing increasing stresses from more erratic weather and new and different pests that move in,” Smith said.  “I think in that regard we're going to need every possible tool we can get to help make our crops as productive as they possibly can be.”
GMOs have only been on the market since 1995, but they’ve recently sparked a national debate over the potential impact they could have on the environment – and our health.
Dr. Michael Wald, of Integrated Medicine of Mount Kisco in New York, said more research needs to be done in order to prove that genetically engineered foods are safe to eat.
“The studies that have been done on different animals – and also reports from farmers – seem to suggest health issues, including intestinal problems, inflammation of the colon…and problems with the kidneys, the liver, the lungs,” Wald said.
Smith also agreed that research is key when it comes to assessing the safety of GMOs.
“None of the products out there have shown any evidence, over the 15 plus years they’ve been (on the) market, of human health concerns,” Smith said.  “So, I find that reassuring in terms of food safety.  That doesn’t say that new products shouldn’t be looked at very carefully.”
The Food and Drug Administration has approved over 40 seeds and plants for genetic modifications – but the agency leaves the safety assessments up to the companies.  However, more and more Americans are asking for GMO products to be labeled - and for the right to know what exactly they are eating.
“If people are not confident in genetically modified foods at this point, they simply should avoid them or purchase less of them,” Wald said. “That will send a direct message to the manufacturers, the big companies that are producing these seeds.”