Many of the technologies we use every day consume a lot more resources and power than they need to, and using and manufacturing them can create a mess. Here are a few of the ways that technology can harm the environment:
Pollution - Air, water, heat and noise pollution can all be caused by producing and using technology
Consuming resources - Non-renewable resources, including precious metals like gold, are used to make technology. Many others, such as coal, are consumed to generate the electricity to use technology. Even some renewable resources, like trees and water, are becoming contaminated or are used up faster than they can renew themselves because of technology.
Waste - Manufacturing technology creates large amounts of waste, and used computers and electronics get thrown out when they break or become outdated. Called "technotrash," these electronics contain all sorts of hazardous materials that are very unsafe for the environment. They need to be disposed of using special methods.
Disrupting ecology - Clearing land where animals used to live to build factories and allowing pollution to contaminate the food chain can greatly affect the environment's natural cycles.
Health hazards - Using toxic materials that can harm our health can cause cancer, and technology addiction can lead to other health problems like obesity and carpal tunnel syndrome.
You can encourage manufacturers by choosing to buy more energy-efficient and less hazardous electronics and by supporting companies that make protecting the environment a priority. You can also do your own part to reduce environmental impact by not being wasteful and disposing of your electronics safely and properly.
Anthony Dao on 21 Nov 12"Back in the day, we had to use this thing called paper". This statement could potential be used in the future. During the American Music Awards on November 18, 2012, presenters used the Galaxy Note II to announce winners, instead of using the traditional paper and envelope. This is could change the future because in the future, there is a chance that we will not use paper any more, but we will use technology for literally everything, such as schoolwork, writing a letter (email), etc. Instead of people carrying a book everywhere, they will be bringing around e-readers, and all sorts of mobile devices. Paper could potentially become useless to us since we have technology which stores and organizes many different files in one machine, whereas papers could be organized, or it could be all over the place, depending on who you are. So in short, technology is good, in a sense that is a great organizational tool. This is environmentally important because instead of destroying trees (which provide us oxygen, food, etc) for paper, we could spare the trees, and just use technology instead. Sure, we would need to clear land to build manufacturing companies to create these devices, but it takes up less space and kills less trees, then producing paper, because using paper means that we have to take down the tree, ans well as clear land to build manufacturing companies, and writing utensils as well. This relates to our class because we are a computers class, and we rely on technology for almost 100% of our work. In the future, when technology does take over and paper becomes useless, we will have the upper hand because we know how most of these technologies work.
