Green Technology Forum

While some companies may be moving cautiously toward greener business practices for fear of adding costs, a new survey shows going green can save companies money. A recent UK-based survey found that green initiatives are not affecting supply chain efficiency in 66 percent of companies, and in 27 percent the changes are actually making supply chains more efficient. Other greening efforts include partnering with logistics providers to help green business processes (28 percent), improving energy efficiency (59 percent), redesigning warehousing and distribution center networks (42 percent), and measuring and/or reducing emissions (39 percent).

Green Technology Forum director Dr. George Elvin talks to Sprig.com about green technology in this 4-minute video interview in New York. He describes the key attributes of green technologies and what we at Green Technology Forum are doing to promote them at our own offices. And he reveals the most essential missing ingredient in today’s green revolution.

A parliamentary panel in the UK has recommended that experts rather than government ministers decide what kind of hybrid animal-human embryo experiments to allow. “On the question of research using inter-species embryos,” concluded Parliamentarian Phil Willis, who led the panel, “the committee is quite clear that it wishes to see a greater role for the regulator within a broad permissive framework set out by Parliament.” The report urged parliament to vote on whether to allow inter-species embryo licenses.

One of the more balanced introductions to genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in foods we’ve seen is this 5-minute video produced by European Union Science Education Media. It spans environmental, scientific and social concerns and addresses differences in European and American perspectives on GMOs and new technologies in general.

Freeman Dyson writes on “Our Biotech Future” and green technology in the New York Times Review of Books. “I predict that the domestication of biotechnology will dominate our lives during the next fifty years at least as much as the domestication of computers has dominated our lives during the previous fifty years,” says Dyson. But, he cautions, “It is likely that genetic engineering will remain unpopular and controversial so long as it remains a centralized activity in the hands of large corporations.” His alternative? Domesticated biotechnology. “Designing genomes,” he predicts, “will be a personal thing, a new art form as creative as painting or sculpture.”

Public perceptions and media interpretations are critical in the evolution of emerging technologies. So if you’re looking for an in-depth, scientific perspective on the public and media perspectives on nanotechnology, check out Professor Dietram Scheufele’s excellent blog, nanopublic. He’s well aware of something many of us tend to forget too often: the future of this extraordinary technology may be determined more by public perception than by the technology itself.

“The data show that currently approved GM crops (eaten by over 300 million Americans over the past ten years) have no detectable impact on health. On the other hand, soy grown by organic farmers has caused the deaths of dozens, if not hundreds, of children.” So says Lee Silver, author of “Challenging Nature: The Clash of Science and Spirituality at the New Frontiers of Life.”

The Body Worlds exhibitions, hailed by some as a towering achievement in anatomical science, have been surrounded by controversy, as Dr. von Hagens’ creations are seen by others as denigrating the deceased. “Humanism in the Age of ‘Enhancement’: A Critical Response to ‘Body Worlds,’” will be hosted by the Institute on Biotechnology and the Human Future in Chicago on January 24, 2007.