Hidden dangers

Pat Mooney, leader of the ETC Group and winner (among other things) of the Giraffe Award as a "person who sticks his neck out" not to mention the Order of the Buffalo Hunt in Manitoba, provoked a gathering of the CFUW on Monday evening into wondering whether the role of science in solving social problems might be overrated. He was speaking about the risks and dangers inherent in nanotechnology. "How many of you have heard of nanotechnology?" he wanted to know. A few hands went up. "Well, that's not bad; you're better informed than [...]!" he said, naming a group from a prestigious educational institute in this city.

Identified by others as a Luddite, Pat Mooney feels "obliged to be controversial." The original Luddites, he said, were people trying to negotiate and survive, but the government of the day said that they were stopping progress and had them hung or deported.

Mr Mooney doesn't think we should behave like the Samurai swordsmen of old, refusing to acknowledge the existence of gunpowder, but we ought to have intelligent government, scientific advisers to the Prime Minister, offices of corporate assessment and other such regulatory bodies. In the UK, there have been citizens' juries (televised) who have sat for a month at a time with the experts discussing nanotechnology in question and answer sessions. This process was excellent. These British juries have asked for controls to be implemented.

Nor does Pat Mooney trust governments alone to grasp the pace of change in the modern world, and ordinary people know next to nothing about nanotechnology, he claims, although hundreds of products are presently being manufactured that make use of it. Nanoparticles are already present in cosmetics, pesticides, foods, clothing, cars, cameras, medical equipment and, of course, computers. At first, the scientists or engineers, keen to exploit the exciting possibilities, declared that our bodies' cells wouldn't be able to absorb the particles or if they did we wouldn't come to any harm, but now all the experts agree there could well be a risk. Aluminium oxide, for example, generally used for tooth repair, at the nano scale can ignite bombs. You wouldn't want all your teeth to blow up, would you? he joked. Gold is a stable element, but when you're dealing with a minute quantity, 7-20 atoms of gold, it becomes a highly reactive substance. You don't know what you're playing with.

It seems unlikely there'll be proper regulations in place to control the development of this technology for another ten years. Meanwhile, its development is continuing regardless, especially in Asia. Incidentally, more scientists are currently working in Beijing than in the whole of northern Europe, and earning far lower salaries.

Synthetic biology has already come up with a synthetic genome; the inventor filed his patent last year. A new variety of maize is being manufactured for use as a bio-fuel by means of an experimental process that urgently needs surveillance. The United Nations has tried, but this monitoring panel was "killed off" by the US government. Which is like giving ourselves a frontal lobotomy, said Mr Mooney.

Geo-engineering, described not long ago as "nutty", is now making a come-back. In fact we could say that we geo-engineered our planet into the mess it's in now, so perhaps geo-engineering can get us out of it, too. For example, we could spread a film of nanoparticles over the Humboldt current. However there's a high risk that doing this would lead to a sterilisation of the ocean, thus creating a new Ice Age. Australian scientists were recently planning to spread urea over an area of water around the Philippines to encourage the growth of plankton, until Greenpeace and the WWF put a (temporary?) stop to it.

In the erroneous belief or hope that new technology can solve our problems without us—non-scientists—having to do anything, it seems we have lost track of its potential social consequences, but we do need to see the changes coming. History shows that the introduction of any such advanced technology into an unjust society must widen the gap between the rich and the poor. Here Mr Mooney used an expressive metaphor. The rich ride the crest of progress while the poor, unable to adjust so rapidly, drown in the trough, as was often the case during the 19th century Industrial Revolution. Such waves of change are now coming faster and faster. The no-stain or "wrinkle free" materials that have been developed for clothing (using nanotechnology) don't need as much cotton in them as before. What does that mean for the world's cotton growers and cotton harvesters?

About $700 billion is presently being invested in nanotechnology. By 2015 it's estimated that it will be used for 15% of global manufacturing and that the expenditure will rise to $2.6 trillion.

So what can we do? asked one of the ladies in the audience. The answer was simple. We must participate in the debate and governments must pay attention, if only because the impact of nanotechnology on the poor people of the world is likely to be enormous, a far greater cause for concern than how it might affect our health or the environment.