e-portfolio for David Bourque

Rough Draft of Paper 4

What will the world be like in 2064? Will it be a thriving human civilization where technology has improved everyone's life? Or will have the effects of global warming have made the earth uninhabitable? David E. Nye, Carolyn Merchant, and Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger all have their views on what the world will look like in 2064. David E. Nye would say that in 2064 the human population will have made the changes necessary to prevent the world from going into disarray. We will become a society similar to what we are today except more sophisticated and advanced technologically. Carolyn Merchant would say that our current systems of capitalism and mechanism will continue to destroy out planet and that in 2064 the world will be lost. Merchant believes that we need to change but seems to think that it is rather unlikely that it will happen. Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger would say that by 2064 the human race will have made the necessary changes and will have stopped and started to reverse the damages that global warming has caused. They believe that while we are currently on the track to disaster we will see the danger of global warming and fight to stop it, so that by the year 2064 we will no longer be worrying about global warming. I believe that by the year 2064 we will have changed our ways and will have stopped the global environmental problems that threaten us today so that we will be living in a very prosperous society.

David E. Nye talks about sustainable abundance and the worlds carrying capacity. He believes that the worlds carrying capacity is socially constructed and based upon choices that society makes. Simple changes, like using more renewable resources and eating less meat, will allow us to increase the carrying capacity of the earth and allow human to live without fear of running out of resources (Nye 108). If these choices are not met however the world will have too many people for the amount of resources that are available causing global catastrophes such as widespread famine and diseases and global wars. I believe that Nye thinks that by 2064 the world will have made these changes and we will be living happily without fear of running out of resources. We will have a prosperous civilization that will use technology for a better life. The changes are not hard so Nye believes that we can make them and create a better life without fear of overpopulation.

Carolyn Merchant talks about the need to change out ways. She tells of the many wrongs we are committing on the environment. Capitalism and mechanism are draining our resources and creating global ecological problems. We are abusing nature to meet our wants, like cutting down the rainforests for more farmland and lumber. We are depleting the ozone layer with our use of chlorofluorocarbons in Styrofoam and refrigerators (Merchant 262). If we don't stop the world will become and uninhabitable place. Merchant believes that the changes we need to make are enormous. We need to completely change our current thought patterns in order to save the earth. She would say the changes are too drastic to make and that her thoughts of a dead earth in the future will come true. We will no longer be living in such a structured society and if there are humans left they will be fighting each other for survival on an earth that is no longer friendly to humans.

Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger tell about how environmentalists have failed. The environmentalists have focused on the negatives too long. They continue to try and scare the world into changing its ways, predicting huge global catastrophes that will wipe out human civilization. Nordhaus and Shellenberger say if environmentalists don't change their ways and start trying to focus on positive ways of rebuilding our environment, then huge issues like global warming will forever alter life on this planet for the worse. Environmentalists need to focus on the positive outcomes of the actions that we need to take in order to avert his disaster. Nordhaus and Shellenberger believe that if environmentalists can do this then people will listen to their pleas and try to stop global warming (Nordhaus and Shellenberger 7). If we don't change then Nordhaus and Shellenberger believe that the earth will become a desolate place. However, they believe that humans are capable of making these changes and that we can avoid this disaster. The change is minor, and the people who really need to make it are the ones who want to save the earth from disaster, the environmentalists. They believe that the environmentalists will change their ways, because they really want to save the earth, and if that means using a different approach then they are willing to do so. Nordhaus and Shellenberger believe that in 2064 the world will have stopped global warming and will be a great place to live in.

I agree with both David E. Nye and Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger, that by 2064 he world will have averted disaster and will be a prosperous place to live in. I also believe that both of their ideas about which problems need to be faced are true. I believe that the worlds carrying capacity and global warming are two huge problems that need to be avoided. I also agree with their solutions. I agree with Nye's solution that we need to make little changes in order to have a large impact upon the worlds carrying capacity for the better. I also agree with Nordhaus and Shellenberger that environmentalists need to change their methods from using negative scenarios, to telling about the positive impact that our actions will have on the environment. I do think that some of Carolyn Merchants problems are real and that we do need to deal with them. However, I do not agree with her methods of fixing them and I do not think that the world will become an uninhabitable world without very few if any human survivors of a great ecological catastrophe. I believe that in 2064 we will have a prosperous society that has changed it ways in order to avert the disasters that would otherwise have destroyed our planet.

What will the year 2064 be like? Will we have a prosperous society that has averted the environmental disasters that are threatening it today? Or will we continue to ignore the problems and will the earth have become a desolate graveyard? David E. Nye would say that we will avert the disasters and have created a great society. We will have stopped the treat of overpopulation and will be living without worry of running out of resources. Carolyn Merchant would say that we will have not changed the world will no longer be filled with great human civilizations. We will have ignored all of the problems that face the earth, like the destruction of the ozone layer, and it will have costed us. Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger would say the we would have evaded the disaster and will be living in a prosperous society that will have stopped global warming. Environmentalists will have changed their strategy and that will have made people start to change their ways and stop global warming. I agree with Nye and Nordhaud and Shellenberger that the world will have become a prosperous place, where human civilizations thrive off plentiful resources and powerful technology. By 2064 the world will have become a great place to live in.

Works Cited
Merchant, Carolyn. Ecological Revolutions. N.p.: University of North Carolina Press, 1989. Print.
Nordhaus, Ted, and Michael Shellenberger. "From the Nightmare to the Dream." Introduction. Break Through. By Nordhaus and Shellenberger. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2007. 1-18. Print.
Nye, David E. Technology Matters: Questions to Live With. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2007.


Rough Draft of Paper 3

Nye's statement, “Ultimately the worlds carrying capacity is not a scientific fact, but a social construction,”(Nye 108) is very bold. In it he claims, not that science is socially constructed, but that how much we can have is socially constructed. He says that, “Nature is not outside us, and it does not have fixed limits. Rather its limits are our own.”(Nye 108) He means that our culture determines what are capacity for things is. Carolyn Merchant's statement, “Science is an ongoing negotiation with nonhuman nature for what counts as reality. Scientists socially construct nature, representing it differently in different historical epochs.”(Merchant 4) says that science is socially constructed. She claims that what we believe to be scientific fact is in actuality a mechanism constructed by our culture. She says that what we believe to be true, we believe because of aspects of our culture. In a different culture our aspects of science would be different. Nye and Merchant mean very different things in their statements. Merchant says that what we know is socially constructed while Nye says how much we can have is socially constructed.
Nye in his article, “Sustainable Abundance or Ecological Crisis?” talks about how the worlds carrying capacity is a social construction. He talks about Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe says that mastery of technology means abundance. He says “Starting with nothing but a gun and a few tools salvaged from the wreck of his ship, the fictional Crusoe creates a comfortable though lonely life.” He goes on to say that this is because of his knowledge of technology. Crusoe does not have to invent anything, all he has to do is recreate things that were already invented and is able to create abundance on an uninhabited island.(Nye 87) He is able to have more because of his culture. Nye also talks about the difference between The United States and Europe. The US is more spread out and uses individual automobiles to travel from place to place, while Europe uses more mass transit. Both nations have an equal standard of living but Europe is more sustainable, because it relies less on nonrenewable fossil fuels.(Nye 105) This sustainability has to do with the carrying capacity in the same way that abundance does. Sustainability and abundance both rely on culture in the same way that the carrying capacity does. How much we can have is determined by how much others around us can have. This determines what abundance, or having too much, is. Sustainability is determined by how long we can continue having the same things. This is what Nye's article is about.
Carolyn Merchant talks about how science is a social construction. She means that science, or what we know, is determined by our culture. What humans knew in ancient Greece is different from what we know now because of the difference in culture, not because we have become more sophisticated thinkers. Merchant compares science to environmental history. She says, “Scientists socially construct nature, representing it differentlyin different historical epochs. These social constructions change durning scientific revolutions. Similarly, historians socially construct the past in accordance with concepts relevant to the historian's present.”(Merchant 4) What she means by this is that both science and history are made based on the culture of the individual scientist or historian. She claims that what we know is based on our the culture of whoever thought of it, and does not depend upon the intellect of the individual who thought of it.
I find Nye's argument more convincing. Nye uses examples like Crusoe and the difference between America and Europe to solidify his argument. His argument also makes more sense to me from my experiences. I can see how the culture has indeed affected how much we can have throughout history. Merchant's argument however does not convince me as much. She says that science is a social construction, that what we know is based on our culture. While I see that different cultures think about different things, I can't see that the cause is the culture. I believe that the cause is that as we have more knowledge we are able to extend that knowledge with people who have increasing intellect. This does not have to do with culture and makes me not believe what Merchant is saying. Nye on the other hand does a better job of reinforcing his point. Nye's statement that the worlds carrying capacity is a social construction is more persuasive than Merchant's statement that science is a social construction.
Works Cited
Nye, David E. Technology Matters: Questions to Live With. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2007.
Merchant, Carolyn. Ecological Revolutions. N.p.: University of North Carolina Press, 1989. Print.















This video is about Nicholas Negroponte's initiative to bring laptops to every child in the world. In it he talks about how laptops are essential to the kids education. He says how people say shouldn't you give them books and he counters that on each laptop he can have a have a hundred books and if each child has a laptop that is tens of thousands of books, which is more than most people had growing up.




ROUGH DRAFT OF PAPER ONE

Both Ralph Waldo Emerson and David E. Nye make broad statements about technological determinism. Emerson claims that, “Things are in the saddle/And ride mankind.” (Emerson) He says that technology is a force of its own and mankind can do nothing to stop it. Emerson also writes that things make men become “unking.” (Emerson) Nye writes that humans have control over technology and that we can resist new technologies. He uses examples like the the Japanese's rejection of the guns. Guns were introduced to the Japanese by the Portuguese in the 1500's. However after winning a decisive battle, the Japanese stopped using them altogether(Nye 17). He uses this example to show that people can resist the urge of technology. It is clear from these arguments that Nye tries to refute Emerson's claim that technology controls us. Nye tries to say that technology rather than controlling us is shaped by the the culture of society at the time. He says that while some people like to pitch that technology is inevitable, in fact the usefulness of technology is unpredictable (Nye 21). Nye disagrees with what Emerson states in his poem, "Ode, Inscribed to William H. Channing.”

While uses some good arguments in his essay, “Does Technology Control Us,” I can't help but disagree with him. He uses the argument that the Japanese don't use guns to help support his cause, yet eventually the Japanese are forced to start developing guns when Commodore Perry went to Japan (Nye 17). While the Japanese did resist guns for a time they were eventually forced to resort to guns in order to continue to be their own country. This actually helps to serve proof that technology controls us. As much as the Japanese did not want to use guns and did not like them, they were still forced to. While some can try to not use new technology, as it becomes more and more popular in order to continue to be a valid member of society one has to start using it.

Another example that Nye uses to claim that technology is not deterministic is the Amish. He says that the Amish have been successfully rejecting the use of technology. He also says that they use traditional farming techniques, that do not use new technology that has made farming easier. However he also goes on to say that in order to communicate with the rest of the world that they have to use new technology. While they generally resist the use of phones they do indeed need to use them sometimes (Nye 18). The Amish try to resist technology, except they are also unsuccessful in resisting technology. They have to use phones in order to communicate with the world outside of Amish country. They also make their lives harder by farming without the new technology that makes it easier. While Nye says that this is the Amish resisting technology, I think that this is just them making their lives harder and eventually even they will be forced to resort to technology. These examples that Nye uses to show that people can resist technology do not appear to work as in the cases he suggests they do indeed end up having to resort to using technology.

Nye's suggestion that cultural choices determine technology does not suggest that technology is not deterministic (Nye 21). Even if technology is determined by society, that does not mean that people can resist it. If a technology is used a lot that means that people have used it and it will eventually be used by everyone. While there are some technologies that do not become popular, that does not mean that we can resist technology as a whole. Still this argument suggests that technology is determined by the culture. However if you look at examples from current times it is hard to show that. An example is Facebook. Facebook is a social networking site that allows people to share messages and chat with each other. While some may say that it is popular only because of the current state of society, I will have to disagree. Throughout the entirety of human times people have wanted to communicate with others. No matter what society Facebook came out in it would still be widely used because it allows people to communicate easier with each other. This fact makes it so that people will use it because they want to communicate with each other. Human nature does not change no matter what the culture is and this is what shapes what technology is used, not the culture of a given society. Nye's arguments do not seem to have any solid evidence that supports his claims.

Technological determinism, while at first glance seems crazy, after further analysis, appears to be true. Emerson's suggestion that “Things are in the saddle/And ride mankind,” (Emerson) is indeed quite true. David E. Nye tries to argue against this but his arguments do not truly resist technology. The Japanese tried to resist guns but eventually were forced to use them by Commodore Perry (Nye 17). The Amish, while they do resist some farming technology, this only hurts them, and other technology, like phones they are forced to use to communicate (Nye 18). Nye also says that cultural choices determine what technologies are used (Nye 21). There are two things that are wrong with this statement. First is that this is not true. The technologies that are used are not successful based on the society, but on human nature. It is human nature to want to communicate with others. That is why Facebook is so popular, it has nothing to do with the society. The second thing wrong with Nye's statement is that even if it was true it does not prove that technology is not deterministic. Just because a technology is used base don culture does not mean that you can avoid it. It does not disprove technological determinism. To try and create an argument against technological determinism, he uses examples that do not prove his point and it in the end people end up using technology anyways.