ABSTRACT
The combination of research, regulation and precaution is all the generation has at its disposal as it seeks both to avoid unanticipated adverse consequences from new technologies for itself, and to do the right thing by way of its responsibilities to future generations. As far as sustainable development is concerned, it is that notion of intergenerational equity that marks it out from all those other notionally 'big ideas' that jostle for attention in today's febrile political marketplace. Theoretically, every government under the sun is signed up to that overarching understanding of sustainable development. The fast-moving consumer societies in the rich world are driven by an insatiable thirst for the new, for the next, for the neural numbing of life lived as a life-long shopping spree. And it is hard to ignore the fact that the emergence of today's increasingly sophisticated information and communication technologies has greatly exacerbated that consumerist frenzy.
