What kind of innovations should be created in the 21st century to protect the Earth from the negative aspects of the development of civilization, including the negative effects of the development of traditional industries and energy based on minerals?
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innovative technologies used for manage natural resources conservation and climate change and other environmental challenges such as pollution caused by industrialization.
It is as simple as by taking individual responsibility towards our planet Earth, and it is as difficult as to make life style changes for control of hypertension and high blood sugar by maintaining weight according to BMI, avoiding junk foods and having physical activity for 30 minutes at least 3_5 days on a week.
Financial incentive for individuals to protect Earth might be one solution, or recognition, awards, trophies can be helpful for promoting behaviors to protect Earth.
innovative technologies used for manage natural resources conservation and climate change and other environmental challenges such as pollution caused by industrialization.
A very interesting and challenging question. Firstly we need to define the term 'negative aspects of development of civilization'. I would not expect that this term can be easily agreed upon from the various perspectives of governments, civil society, industry, agriculture, forestry, financing institutions, by cultural standards, religious values, etc. Nevertheless, it may be agreeable that the steady increase of human population, food and industrial production demands increasing resources and energy that result in increasing emissions (solid, liquid, gaseous). Besides, more space is needed to perform additional activities, for human settlements and infrastructure whereas space can not be increased on our planet. If space can be made available extraterrestrial in the needed quality and time frame remains uncertain. Consdering the need to maintain an intact planet Earth we would need to design tools that can assess these main 'negative aspects' and lead to an evaluation process that can be agreed by all states as fair and suited and as base to formulate correction measures, interventions or to regulate national development programs accordingly. I forsee that such a tool must include a harmonized approach to judge overall resources use and to count all emissions or to transfrom the major ones into emission equivalents (not only CO2) in order to design the future in a fair way for all nations. From my perspective this universal framework would be the main innovation needed to enable a global, fair and streamlined planning process for all nations. However, during planning and to design a better future, science would be needed to add numerous innovations that allow to reduce or adjust national 'eco-footprints' (and especially emissions) in the most effective manner. Related innovations are 'on the way', but are not coordinated (e.g. renewable energy, alternative raw materials), meaning instead of establishing a more efficient nexus approach with most possible synergies, valuable innovations get involved in competing economic interests that create barriers instead of effective approaches, some innovations may be 'terminated' due to ecomoic interest although they could offer valuable co-benefits. Lastly, it will be needed to face out the still practiced approach to claim 'economical development' as beneficial. The annual (political) drive to propose +2% economic growth as most relevant and dominating national target will be contraproductive if not considered and included in the overall 'Eco-Socio-footprint'. Full-Socio-Economic-Environmental cost accounting in this sense should include all relevant social-environmental cost in a much more comprehensive and legal binding manner. My answer does not include building and strengthening of democratic processes and conflict addressing/minimizing innovations since I do not have related expertise. But I hope that other scientist will add ideas that could be included in the 'FCA' for innovative approaches.
Dear Friends and Colleagues of RG
What kind of innovations should be created in the 21st century to protect the Earth from the negative aspects of the development of civilization, including the negative effects of the development of traditional industries and energy based on minerals?
Please reply
I invite you to the discussion
Best wishes
The key issues in this respect are eco-friendly innovations and currently developed innovations that improve developed information technologies. Industry 4.0.
What's your opinion on this topic?
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