Description: Technology has played an significant role in creating sustainability problems that we now face; but it will also play an important role in resolving them. But this does not mean the technological fix will be easy. This book illustrates that the sustainability impact of a technology is often much more complicated and ambivalent than one might expect.
Review Quotes: "Presented in the form of an academic communication session, the bulk of this book comprises a series of case studies all aimed at improving the economic, environmental or social performance of technologies and resource management. An introductory study and a chapter on conclusions frame the eleven studies looking at materials and energy, urbanisation, transport and water management. Acknowledging both the Bruntland Commission definition of sustainability and the vagueness of the term, this volume investigates the complex ways in which different manifestations or articulations of sustainability conflict with each other and the way technology is intertwined with economic interests, policy-making, cultural habits or social goals. Can applying the same technology yield completely different and sometimes opposite results? Is it possible that the very process of recycling is damaging to the environment? How long until the end of oil, or the beginning of the hydrogen-fuelled society? These are only a few of the huge number of puzzling questions that scientists and researchers are trying to answer."-- (12/01/2011)