Words make a big difference in how we perceive things. For example, the regular use of the word “biodiversity” today reflects a common understanding and shared philosophy regarding the workings and the importance of nature that didn’t exist a few decades ago.

The hot buzz-words “clean-tech” and “green-tech” have been on my mind lately. Nothing wrong with either — I like “clean”, I like “green”, and I even like “tech”. While the economic growth associated with these words is exciting, let’s take a moment to recognize the limitations of the underlying philosophical concepts these words describe.

A Public Profile posted by Pangaea Ecological Solutions over the weekend neatly says what I’ve been thinking, so I’d like to showcase a snippet of their listing…

“We use ecology, not technological products to meet the demands of human living systems. This means we are committed to treating ourselves as part of the ecosystem. Our “product” is the natural world, and has been proven for billions of years!”

Pangaea is pointing at something fundamental as we consider the future of society and the economy. “Tech” implies the continued heavy involvement of human effort, where “ecology” as used here implies allowing nature to do more and more of the work for us. As a result, ecological approaches can be even better for the economy and even more effective in accomplishing goals than technology-based solutions for today’s mega challenges.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 2nd, 2008 at 10:06 am and is filed under Commentary, Ecopreneurs, Philosophy. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.