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Can Technology Save the World?

Credit Roman Boed / Flickr Creative Commons
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Flickr Creative Commons
Google's Self-Driving Car

Let's take the most dire problem facing humankind: Climate change has so many negative implications it would take all day to list them. Meanwhile, there's the possibility of a sudden acceleration of a problem caused by the melting of Arctic ice, which exposes more ocean water to warming, which causes more melting, which causes more...well, you get the picture.

What if we suddenly needed to put the brakes on this process even more than we do now? One possibility is to pump particles of sulfur dioxide, or similar reflective chemicals, into the stratosphere. Of course, reflecting sunlight away from the planet could cause some other series of interlinked and very scary events. 

How do we decide whether a technological fix is a good one, especially when the problem is urgent? 

GUESTS:

  • Wendell Wallach is the Chair of Technology & Ethics at the Yale Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics
  • James Hughes is the Executive Director of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies at Trinity College
  • Kate Darling is a researcher at MIT Media Lab
Colin McEnroe is a radio host, newspaper columnist, magazine writer, author, playwright, lecturer, moderator, college instructor and occasional singer. Colin can be reached at colin@ctpublic.org.
Chion Wolf is the host of Audacious with Chion Wolf on Connecticut Public.
Betsy started as an intern at WNPR in 2011 after earning a Master's Degree in American and Museum Studies from Trinity College. She served as the Senior Producer for 'The Colin McEnroe Show' for several years before stepping down in 2021 and returning to her previous career as a registered nurse. She still produces shows with Colin and the team when her schedule allows.

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