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Earth Systems Engineering and Management: The Biotechnology Discourse
Pages 51-56

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From page 51...
... The technological orientation of ESE reflects the central role of technology as the means by which human cultures interact with the physical, chemical, and biological world. Biotechnology, for example, taken as a general human capability, is a primary means by which we now structure fundamental natural systems.
From page 52...
... The ignorance of the religious or ethical dimensions of a project is one reason technologists tend to resist the idea that their activities are culturally determined. The same cannot be said of ESE, which is not an artifact in an existing context; ESE is the cultural and ethical context itself Consider the efforts being made to reengineer the Everglades, a unique biological community, to preserve remaining species and habitat in the face of dramatically increasing human presence in Florida.
From page 53...
... Under traditional international law, only countries are considered competent to make treaties, negotiate agreements, and represent citizens in international forums. Participants in the negotiations on measures to mitigate global climate change, for example, are all nation states; private firms and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs)
From page 54...
... NGOs have also spearheaded many significant environmental and social campaigns, such as the opposition to genetically modified organisms, confrontations over working conditions in factories in the developing world, and sometimes violent attacks on trade and international financial institutions. Polls routinely show that NGOs have more credibility on environmental issues than scientists, private firms, and even government regulators.
From page 55...
... Communities affected by a proposed activity, such as the siting of a toxic waste dump, may also participate in governance dialogues if they believe their interests are not being represented. The growth of the Internet and the communications infrastructure has made it much easier for communities of interest to consolidate and represent their concerns in the governance process.
From page 56...
... The fact that societies that turned their backs on powerful technologies in the past have been overtaken is not a normative judgment but an objective observation. One need only compare China, where many technologies were discovered but not widely used, and, hence, a technological society never evolved, with Europe, where the Industrial Revolution flourished (Nee&am, 1991; Noble, 1997)


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