ESSENCE OF ENVIRONMENTAL TECHNOLOGY

Our environment has been subjected to extreme exploitation to attain the aspirations and satisfy the needs of man. But in the long run, what is the essence to meeting the insatiable vanity of mankind and pay for a higher price in the future? A couple of week ago, Accra, the capital city of Ghana experienced acute shortage of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) due to the fact that this natural commodity (that is the LPG)meant  for domestic  consumption has met severe patronage from the automobile industry, especially private and public vehicles. Unfortunately, some of us forgot that the inability to access LPG for domestic consumption would mean resort to charcoal which would ultimately result in the destruction of our natural vegetation. Fortunately, there is an antidote to save our world, and that is environmental technology (technological environment).

Environmental technology, according to Wikipedia, is the application of environmental science to conserve the natural environment and resources, and to curb the negative impacts of human involvement. In other contexts, it is known as Green technology or clean technology. It evaluates the impact of human activities on the environment and seeks to develop appropriate technologies to achieve the twin objective of saving the environment and satisfying the needs of mankind. Simply put, to forge a symbiotic relationship between man and the environment.

What are the goals of technological environment? To start with, it seeks to sustain the environment which of course, is its prime objective. Already, the world is confronted with numerous natural disasters like hurricanes, earthquakes, flooding, etc due to the avoidable mistakes and negligence of man.

Moreover, it seeks to make efficient use of natural provisions without having a negative impact on the environment. A typical example is use of solar energy, which attracts energy from the sun to generate electricity. Already, some rural communities and some business establishment s in Ghana are already using solar energy.

In the past, technological advancement has come with huge prices, especially its negative impact on the natural environment, but if our businesses, governments, and we ourselves, would embrace environmental technology and respect the environment, humans and nature would live in harmony.