The Net needs a new visionary

8:40am Friday 28th March 2008

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With the recent death of Sir Arthur C. Clarke came the great loss of a literary and hi-tech visionary. His short story The Sentinel, made into the push-technology-to-the-limits film 2001:A Space Oydessy, is still the talk of the tech town. He challenged writers, scientists and sociologists to new levels with unprecedented ideas of what technology could do.

Our technological world has lost one visionary - and is certainly ready for a new one. We need someone who can take us to new horizons.

Like many great things in society, the Internet is at risk of falling prey to negative media coverage, users taking advantage of others, and government regulators trying to nanny' best practice.

Even web creator Tim Berners-Lee voiced concern at plans for Internet Service Providers to track users' surfing habits (Phorm) and target advertising based on this information. He said he would change his ISP if that was to happen. (Source: bbc.co.uk) Over time, technology has developed along the same lines as the automobile. First it was developed for general use. It was hailed as the brave new world'. But the focus soon moved to accidents, pollution and who's driving what. Now it needs to be on safety initiatives, carbon footprint reduction alternatives, and individuals are making a difference with alternative modes of transport. It will take a brave initiative to move technology beyond the easy negative targets, take the road less travelled and find a new, clean route for it to take. Here are some sites that might inspire.

The blog Green Technology, www.greentechnolog.com/ is a clean site looking at a number of key areas. They highlighted the recent appointment by Microsoft of an environmenal strategist. Is this a step forward? Maybe Microsoft can use its corporate powers to push the green technology agenda.

In the UK, The Green Technology Initiative, www.greentechnologyinitiative.org, gets right to the point. "The Green Technology Initiative has been set up to help UK businesses reduce the carbon footprint of their IT systems in line with the government target of a 20 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2010". However, the site's press section seemed to have run out of gas, having not been updated for quite some time. I emailed them to find out, but at the time of going to press I had had no response. They do link to a document by Computing http://www.computing.co.uk/ listing seven steps to green computing, which has some practical ideas. We have to start somewhere.

www.greentechnologyinitiative.org/Green%20Technology%20Initiative_files/sevensteps.pdf.

A recent feature in The Guardian paints a somewhat darker picture of where businesses are putting their investments. And guns seem to be moving ahead of green. Perhaps our appetite for quick fixes, brought about by the continuous promise of faster technology over better, greener technology, is skewing our vision and our patience. We need to think outside the box.

www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2219566,00.html In 2005, The Rolex Awards, www.rolexawards.com, recognised a special technological development to help decrease ocean noise pollution that was affecting whales, in some cases causing boats to crash into them. In 2006, they recognised the work of UK zoologist Rory Wilson's hi-tech device that will keep animal diaries, thus helping us deal with the effects of environmental changes on species, without actually having to observe them in person in the wild. It saves time, energy and money. This year's awards will be announced in November. Let's be inspired by these leaders.

The New Scientist has a fascinating story in its environment section about how one answer was so obvious it begged the question Why hadn't we thought of this before?' Recently, a sailor set off to travel from Hawaii to Japan solely using power generated from the waves beneath his boat. We need to dig deep for solutions, new ideas and creative answers.

environment.newscientist.com/article/dn13479-sailor-takes-on-pacific-in-wavepowered-boat.html.

Here are some other inspiring stories about what people are doing to be technologically green.

l Research on corporate green strategies by Price Waterhouse Coopers: www.pwc.com/extweb/pwcpublications.nsf/docid/F5DBAFA7B3F4501D852570830007AD84.

l Pure ecological ideas on everything from computers, to gadgets to environmental software.

www.ecogeek.org l Living Green: The top site in a Google search of green places to live in the UK turned up the most expensive places to live in the UK'. Well, we do have some work to do to get this on the top of the search engine agenda. But, it also turned up National Geographic's Green Guide, www.thegreenguide.com, a broad-based, informed site, worthy of a visit.