ABSTRACT
The Owl of Minerva takes flight only when the shades of night are gathering. Capitalism’s handmaiden, innovation, concerns the diffusion of novel technologies. Much concern with technology centers on energy and how its emissions lead to global warming and to a cascade of detrimental effects. The external entropy it necessarily creates can only be offset by incoming energy. The assertion that technology offers our best chance in the pursuit of sustainability is highly contested. Legislative measures that would favour technological sustainability include the establishment of non-human rights and the crime of ecocide, limiting corporate influence over representational politics and amending patent law to support genuine progress. The tension between values involving technology and nature includes nature’s intrinsic value as against the practical value of working within altered ecosystems in conjunction with corporate interests. The governance of technologies for sustainability must itself rely on technologies available for data, information and knowledge, as well as for communication.
