RESEARCH AND THE FUTURE OF THE TECHNOSPHERE
by David A. Bella
Department of Civil Engineering Oregon State University Corvallis, OR 973312302
Presented at SIGMA XI, The Scientific Research Society, Annual Initiation and Awards
Oregon State University Corvallis, OR May 19, 1992
Introduction
The Adaptation Panel (AP) of the National Academy of Sciences (1991) released a
controversial report on the impacts of global climate change due to greenhouse warming.
Roberts (1991) describes the message of the AP report as follows:
“… the impact of greenhouse warming in the United States will be, by and large,
mild and the nation should have little trouble adapting to the several degree
temperature rise predicted over the middle of the next century”
The AP report assumed future conditions and then examined our ability to cope with
environmental changes. Hence, technological abilities and their development over time are of
paramount importance to the panel. For some, the report’s findings are reassuring; they imply
that we can adapt to climatic changes without great cots, risks, or sacrifice.
One panel member, Jane Lubchenco objected to the complacent tone of the report.
Lubchenco reasoned that the AP approach is misleading because it implies that “the activities
and systems are independent and distinct from one another.” She reasoned that a comprehensive
assessment “ must include the interactions and interdependencies among the various activities
and systems.” Of particular concern to Lubchenco are the “indirect costs, such as the
environmental costs of various adaptations.” By isolating specific activities, examining their
sensitivities to climate change alone, and neglecting the consequences of our responses to
environmental change, a false impression of the adaptation problem is given.
In the preface of the AP report, Chairman P.E. Waggoner appears to reply to
Lubchenco’s criticism as follows:
“[The report] does not attempt to assess all the numerous environmental changes
that will be taking place simultaneously, including loss of habitat, destruction of
ozone layer and marine pollution, to name a few. The panel was not charged with
assessing the entire question of “environmental sustainable development”
This response, such as it is, appears to acknowledge the importance of interactions but justifies
the AP approach by pointing to the limited charge of the panel. Other portions of the report
seem to claim that Lubchenco’s concern are too broad. The panel reasoned that, “The impacts of
climate change must be sorted out from other effects caused by simultaneous changes in other
factors” (p. 16).
To describe these different viewpoints, it is useful to employ two terms: tactical and
strategic (Bella and Overton, 1972). Tactical views (the Panel’s) are directed toward specific
problems, proximate causes, and applications of particular abilities. Strategic views
(Lubchenco’s) are directed toward systemic outcomes and failures that cannot be addressed in a
piecewise manner. Tactical approaches tend to be reductionist; strategic, holistic. The AP
approach reflects a tactical perspective on technology. The panel identified specific categories of
potential problems and changes that could arise in the future. Then, for each category, it
assessed the technological resources available to cope with or, if possible, benefit from these
conditions. The total cost of adaptation to changing conditions was taken to be the sum of
technical costs minus the net benefits in all categories of change.
From this tactical perspective, technology is seen as a collection of abilities gained
through such things as technical methods, expertise, skills, tools, equipment, and knowhow.
Thus, for any particular problem that might arise, one looks into this collection for those
particular abilities that could best solve the problem and benefit from the new condition. From
such a tactical perspective, growing problems need not be a cause of concern because the
collection of technological abilities is also growing. A study of any particular ability – waste
treatment, as an example – demonstrates expanding abilities over time. Thus, the total collection
of technological abilities can be expected to expand.
The AP report reasons that expanding technological abilities will allow us to adapt to changing environmental conditions. As examples, we can construct new irrigation systems and build levies to hold back rising sea levels. Any static view of such abilities, they reason, will overstate the negative impacts of global environmental change. Because technological abilities can be expected to increase with time, the AP reasoned that the costs to adapt to climate change would be lower than the cost estimates arising from “dumb people scenarios” that did not include expanding abilities. The implication of the AP report is that the cost to adapt to global climate
change would not be great. For only two of its eleven categories was adaptation found to be
“questionable” (“the natural landscape” and “marine ecosystems”). The remaining categories
were found to have either “low sensitivity” (“industry and energy,” and “health”) or could be
“adapted at a cost.” Total adaptation costs were found to be relatively low in comparison to the
national economy with the costs to farming the highest. A “small net cost” might occur to
counteract winnings and losses.
Others, such as Simon (1983) and Hayek (1989), have made similar assessments claiming
that, because of expanding technological abilities, we need not be concerned over population
growth, resource depletion, or environmental degradation. Such views should not be taken
lightly. They are implied in environmental impact assessments, economic analyses, and U.S.
administration policy in recent years. This paper challenges such views. It accepts that
technological abilities are expanding – no disagreement here. The paper challenges the tactical
perspective that sees technology merely as a collection of technical abilities. This is an
insufficient and dangerously misleading perspective on technology. The risks we face in the 21st
Century require a more strategic view of technology, a broader perspective. There is much more
involved than an expanding collection of technological abilities.
A Strategic View of Technology
To gain a strategic perspective, we must not think of technology as a collection of technical abilities. Instead, we must think of a vast socialtechnical system, a human process, that sustains widespread adapting networks through which resources and information are distributed in ways that coordinate the countless activities of many millions of people throughout the world. Its “global web” of interrelationships extends far beyond the old boundaries of companies and organizations (Reich, 1991). It is constantly adapting and expanding its influence. The global web of human activity and the technologicalinstitutional infrastructure it sustains are defined herein as the technosphere.
The technosphere has become our life support system. For increasing numbers of us
throughout the world, the food we eat, clothes we wear, and even the air we breath, come to us
through its networks and infrastructure. Individuals, groups, and entire cultures must develop the
skills, practices, and relationships needed to survive within the technosphere. Those that fail
suffer. Even those willing to forego the benefits of the technosphere will be forced to conform;
global climate change will transform their native lands so that traditional practices no longer fit.
Let us examine the systemic character of the technosphere.
The technological world that you and I depend upon – for a drink of water, as an example
– is developed and sustained through the actions and decisions of countless human beings
throughout the world. Each individual action involves local and immediate concerns, completing
particular assignments, meeting specified deadlines, performing specialized tasks. Most of us
can consider our own job requirements as examples. The actions of individuals, however, are
linked to those of other individuals through formal contracts, administrative arrangements,
schedules, and assignments, along with informal exchanges, discourse, and pressures. Each
individual or group is directly linked to only a tiny portion of the total within the technosphere.
Collectively, however, the linkages form extensive relational networks that connect individuals
and groups. The networks extend outward, far beyond the view of any individual within the
network. Throughout the networks are countless relational pathways – sequences of linkages –
that form multiple loops and envelop the entire earth. This adapting global network distributes
information and resources in ways that coordinate the activities of many millions of individuals
throughout the world so that collectively they are able to produce and distribute countless
products and services and sustain a vast technical infrastructure. This is the technosphere.
Market mechanisms are important elements in the self-regulating mechanisms of the technosphere, but far more is required. Hayek (1989) is correct when he describes the
importance of information reflected in prices. As an example, prices provide information to
allow engineers to select more efficient design alternatives. But prices don’t tell engineers, as an
example, how to determine loads on structural members, how much steel is required in
reinforced concrete beams, or where the steel should be placed. Prices don’t tell environmental
engineers what pollutant loading will deplete dissolved oxygen within a particular river and what
level of treatment is needed. A multidisciplinary team performing an environmental impact
assessment of a proposed project needs information quite different than prices; indeed, by
omitting environmental costs, including risks, prices can be extremely misleading. In addition to
the information provided by prices – described in Hayek’s market model – technological abilities
depend upon countless procedures, techniques, standards, specifications, and models, in addition
to more fundamental principles (e.g., conservation of mass, momentum, and energy). The
development and distribution of such diverse information is widespread and continuous, far exceeding the capabilities of any group to plan, organize, direct, coordinate, or control. As with
prices, such information emerges from a complex adaptive process far beyond the capabilities of
individuals.
If we are to make any sense of the technosphere as a whole, we must come to grips with
two premises. First, the technosphere is a highly organized system able to coordinate the actions
of hundreds of millions of people on a global scale. Second, the complexity of the technosphere
is far beyond the capacity of any individual or group to grasp, much less control (Winner, 1977;
Bella, 1992). It is difficult for us to imagine organized human activity without an organizing
individual or group. Certainly there are many organizing groups in our world. Nevertheless, it is
wrong to presume that the technosphere as a whole is organized by some global group. It is
misleading to think of technology on the whole as a tool, a device, or machine subject to the
rational control of an operator. It is also misleading to merely claim that the “global market”
explains such global organization. The metaphor of the market implies free individuals
exchanging goods and services with each other in a “market place.” This is an insufficient
metaphor; it fails to adequately describe the highly organized activities that technology requires
on vast scales and the controlled tasks, highly specialized assignments, and tight schedules
placed upon many millions of individuals and groups. How then should we think of the
technosphere and discuss its systemic properties?
Science has come to realize that the natural world is full of highly complex and organized
systems that are far beyond the capacity of anyone to fully grasp or control (Prigogine and
Stengers, 1984). A single cell organism or the entire biosphere are examples. These organized
systems develop and sustain themselves without anyone of us in charge. They are “self-organizing” and “self-regulating” systems. From a broad perspective, such systems appear to share common characteristics. In brief, they are complex, adapting, and nonlinear (CANL)
systems which tend to share the following general characteristics.
· They have many components.
· Each component is directly linked to (influenced by) only a few other components
(a tiny fraction of the total).
· The links between components form vast networks through which multiple pathways of influence and exchange can be traced.
· These networks contain multiple loops of influence and exchange which can dampen or amplify deviations (negative or positive reinforcements) in nonlinear ways.
· The formation of these networks is an adaptive process that involves the interplay of order and disorder over time (i.e., structure emerges from a history of tests, challenges, and influences).
· The adaptive tendency is toward mutually reinforcing networks of influence and
exchange that serve to prevent the growth and spread of disorders and coordinate the activities of many components far beyond the direct influence of any component.
· This systemic coordination leads to “emergent” behaviors, outcomes, and capabilities that cannot be reduced to the behaviors of components.
The technosphere shares these general characteristics. Thus, from a strategic perspective, we can
see the technosphere as a member of a broad class of CANL systems with common behavioral
tendencies.
The study of CANL systems in many fields of science (Mauryama, 1963; Prigogine and
Stengers, 1984; Shal, 1982; Kaplan and Kalan, 1989; Kauffman, 1991; Bak and Chen, 1991) is
leading to general lessons, observations, and insights that can be applied to a strategic assessment
of technology and its global impacts. Complexity and nonlinearity involve far more than a lot of
parts arranged in nonsimple ways. Complexity, Jeremy Campbell tells us, “turns out to be a
special property in its own right, and it makes complex systems different in kind from simple
ones, enabling them to do things and be things we might not have expected” (Campbell, 1982, p.
102). In the face of ongoing fluctuations and development, CANL systems can sustain coherent
behaviors on scales far beyond the direct influence of any of their components. They must be
addressed as wholes – not merely as collections of parts – because their systemic coherence leads to capabilities and behaviors quite different from those of their parts. They are adaptive and able to evolve through the ongoing interplay of order and disorder. History, order, disorder, structure, and behavior are all interrelated within an adaptive process that tends toward self-regulating mechanisms that limit the growth and spread of internal disorders. Within the same process, disorders serve to promote the emergence of new order, structure, and behavior. A “process of creative destruction” (Schumpeter, 1942) can lead to the emergence of new levels of order.
New and unforeseen outcomes, arrangements, and behaviors, including chaos and