This is a guest post from KuleKat

Technology, that's what got us all into this mess isn't it? The internal combustion engine, jet propulsion, mechanized farming, power stations, pesticides, industrial pollution... the list goes on, and on. And now we're due to pay the price with both global warming and oil depletion looming as a result of squandering the earth's resources to feed our addiction to technology.

Surely, since technology is so clearly to blame, we should strive to roll back the tide and oppose further so-called technological progress?

Do I hear any takers for this proposition? A return to a golden age, lit by candles at night and warmed by the crackle of logs in countless hearths, a renaissance of home grown crops, chickens in the yard and beating your clothes on a rock down by the river just like you see in the movies?

Oh I'm sure there are some diehard romantics who buy into the self sufficiency fantasy, but the really inconvenient truth is that if we all set about burning logs to boil lentils and heat our fashionable Yurts we would deforest the place within a month; without modern medicines we could pretty soon reduce life expectancy to levels last seen in the 16th Century (or modern Zimbabwe, if you prefer). As for "natural transport," this was quite commonplace at the beginning of the 20th Century and the streets were knee deep in horse shit - but you wouldn't know that unless you read a history book or several.

So back to the cold shower of reality. Yes, technology has laid at our door responsibility for global warming and depletion of precious natural resources, but technology is also our only realistic hope of making amends and crafting a world we might not feel deservedly ashamed to pass on to our children.

So what exactly has technology ever done for us? Well, there's the obvious, like warm homes and lighting at night, better and more plentiful food and refrigeration to keep it from rotting, the means to travel once inconceivable distances, and communication, whether private such as phone, public as with radio and TV, or potentially both through the Internet.

Now, identifying the cost incurred by heat, light and power for domestic appliances is easy. Electricity, which in almost all cases presently comes from power stations, and we can hazard a guess that the means used to generate that electricity might be less than ideal for any number of reasons.

Travel is even easier: basically you set fire to some form of oil. Trains, planes, buses, boats, automobiles, you name it - they all use engines that burn hydrocarbons.

Communication, other than that facilitated by travel, is unlike the other examples and not a paid up member of the heinous Axis of Energy. Yes, some amount of oil has been used to transmit the electronic bits this article is actually made of, and some more went into the plastic device you're reading it on, and more still is being burned now to power said device. But in the grand scheme of things, it's really rather a trivial amount, even when we all do it.

Anyway, the question we need to ask is: do we want, or can we really afford, to be without any of these benefits that technology has brought us? With the exception of modern travel, the answer is most likely to be a clear no.

Without warmth, light and food we may as well pack it all in right now and collectively slope off to back to scratching out the short, nasty and brutish existence our forebears worked so hard to spare us. But the thing is this, it's not necessary to trash the planet just to supply the basics. Every day a big orange thing appears in the sky and throws more heat and light at us than we know what to do with. And there's the key phrase: "know what to do with."

Technology (yes, the dreaded T word) for utilising and storing sunlight in the form of hot water and electricity already exists. Solar lighting has been around for quite a few years, and with economic conditions starting to swing decisively in favour of "renewable energy" solutions, the technology is being constantly improved and deployed into ever more homes.

I doubt it will be many years before the economic pull/push of solar technology and soaring oil prices coax a majority of households to convert to supplying their own domestic power needs. In the end, money always talks, and when the payback period to free electricity falls below 3 years, there will be a stampede.

Which means that technology, admit it now, will have helped soak up a significant part of the problem and you can pour yourself a nice glass of chilled white wine and carry on reading this article, snug, well fed and with a clearer conscience about the electricity you're using. Which leads neatly to communication.

You're reading this article, amongst many others, and I will read what other people have to say about things, and between us all we end up with a vast melting pot of ideas and ever shifting consensus. It may or may not have occurred to you for example that LED home lighting provides a means to light your home at a fraction of the existing cost in terms of electricity consumption, but you certainly know about it now and may takes steps to find out more, and even install some.

We don't have to wait for the lumbering bureaucracies of governments to form committees, draft turgid reports and pander to special interest lobbies. Anyone living in a building (I hope that's most of us) to which they can attach solar panels and install low energy products can unilaterally take themselves "off-grid." And they can exchange ideas, experiences and advice with millions of others who might then also feel sufficiently informed and confident to follow suit. The best thing about this, though, is that it is intrinsically scaleable. There is zero requirement to build new infrastructure capable of handling millions of homes - we each take responsibility for our own electricity supply and usage.

Of course this all very well for anything that is powered by electricity, but for transport it’s no good at all. Yes, there are a few electric cars being made, but not enough quickly enough and the existing infrastructure is predicated around gas stations and the distance an automobile can travel before it needs refuelling. As for an electric plane, you go first, tell me all about it when (or if) you return.

But why in fact do we need to do all this travelling? You and I don't need to meet face to face in order for me to set forth my views on technology. I have heard much hogwash about how business relationships require physical contact, yet my own experience flatly contradicts this and I suspect I may not be alone. I don't even need to go to an office to do what I do to earn a crust - anyplace with an internet connection is fine, like my home, for example.

What about shopping for food and other items? I do it online. It's more convenient, there's vastly more choice at my fingertips than even the most humungous shopping mall, it's easier to compare price and service levels, it's typically cheaper (since the goods are shipped from a warehouse, not a fancy store that has to pay staff) and best of all, it's the most fuel efficient solution.

One large courier or supermarket van can deliver to scores of customers on a single delivery run. Put another way, that's scores of customers who left their automobiles in the driveway rather than round trip to go pick stuff up themselves. And the reason I and millions like me can do this? Technology. The same one you're using to read this.

Technology is one of our defining characteristics as humans. It can be a blessing or a curse, a path to salvation or a road to damnation, a force for good flawed by an ever present capacity for malice and harm - just like us, in fact. If we roll back the technological progress of the last decades, centuries, how ever far you like, then we will simply add the difficulties of that time to those of our own making.

There never was a golden age; every generation has faced and tried to resolve its own challenges. Not infrequently the solutions caused their own set of issues. But that’s always the job facing the incumbents - to fix the problems in front of them, not to whine about history. Technology is simply the application of ideas to solve problems. Who needs it? I think we do, like never before.

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