Lea Schick is the editor and moderator of this debate forum. During the RETHINK exhibition she will facilitate the RETHINK TECHNOLOGY discussions here on her blog. We will very much encourage you to participate in the debate! 

Welcome

Welcome to the debate forum for rethinking and discussing new technologies and design solutions for the age of climate change. It is my hope to establish and moderate a discussion that covers a broad variety of perspectives on the subject of new technological inventions and solutions. The debate forum is still only in its initial phase but more content will soon be added.

Within ‘the bright green movement’ (as they are called in opposition to ‘the deep greens’) there exists a positive trust in new innovative technologies and designs as the way to mitigate and adapt to climate change. But will the new technologies really get the tremendous effect that they have so often been predicted?

Can we somehow invent our way out of the rising energy consumption, and the natural damages that coal and oil based energy sources produce? How do we design us to a sustainable lifestyle without reducing our standard of living? How can we make new green cities, houses and cars? How can we produce designs that help us become more aware of our private and social energy use? Can new technologies restructure our lives making us consume less? How can we ensure that the new technological inventions also become available for countries that cannot afford to develop, produce or buy them, but for whom they are maybe the most crucial? And, perhaps most importantly, how can we invent design solutions that help us adapt to the all ready existing changes in climate such as droughts, tsunamis, earth quakes, rising coasts etc.?

How should the politicians at COP15 implement these new technologies into their decisions, securing not only the future development of these technologies, but also incorporating them into our everyday lives and making them available for people all over the world?

These questions and many more you will be able to read about and debate here on this blog.

Writers that contribute articles, which you will soon be able to read:

  • Ronni Tino Pedersen, New Media Days, Denmark
  • Tobias Lau, Head of Social Action, Denmark
  • People speak, artist and activist organization
     

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Contributions for RETHINK TECHNOLOGY

 

ABOUT RETHINK TECHNOLOGY

Experts estimate that in order to avoid catastrophic conditions, we must reduce our CO2 emissions by 90% within the next four decades. But the people of the developed world are reluctant to embrace austerity, and the people of the developing world desire for themselves the goods and lifestyles that developed countries enjoy. New technologies and design solutions are our only hope of bridging the divide between the human desire for luxury and the ever-sharper threat our changing climate promises us. New inventions and technological implementations have an essential role to play in reducing greenhouse gas emissions as well as improving living conditions for the millions if not billions of people who will be negatively affected by climate change. Some argue that we are on the edge of a new industrial revolution, marked by renewable energy and green technologies. But unlike the first industrial revolution, this second, green revolution will be ineffective unless these technologies are made accessible to both developed and developing states, many of which will be among the nations most profoundly affected by climate change.

What can be done to make this vital, green technology accessible to all the people of the world? How can the challenge of serving local and at times unique situations and needs around the globe be met? How can we design and invent our way to a more sustainable lifestyle in the limited time that we have left? How can technologies make it possible for us to change the way we consume without reducing our standards of living? And can artists and designers contribute in the development of new creative solutions?

We here encourage you to read and discuss if and how new renewable technologies, green design solutions, techno-geological fixes, awareness technologies, and so on will possibly influence our lives in the future and perhaps help us to both mitigate and reverse the course of climate change as well as adapt to the inevitable changes we are already beginning to experience.

 

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Discuss the RETHINK TECHNOLOGY contributions on the blog to the left.