Nanomaterial Governance, Planetary Health, and the Sustainocene Transition
Date
2014
Authors
Faunce, Thomas
Bruce, Alex
Donohoo, Angus
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
William Andrew
Abstract
For good or bad, the immediate future of humanity is irreversibly entwined with technologies of the nanoscale. One of the great contemporary paradoxes is that solutions to global problems, such as pandemics, environmental degradation as well as lack of energy and food security, may reside in how we decide to govern materials operating at the scale of one billionth of a meter and involving probabilistic quantum effects. Increasingly scientists have began to emphasize the importance of nanotechnology in systematically alleviating the critical problems facing humanity and its biosphere. One of the main ways nanotechnology can assist in this is via artificial photosynthesis and through its contribution to ensuring a global, equitable, domestic, or locally produced source of hydrogen fuel as well as ammonia fertilizer and starch-based food. The hypothesis explored in this chapter is that nanotechnology (once appropriately regulated) will emerge in the future as a close “friend of the earth,” indeed that this is nanotechnology’s “moral culmination.” Further, we argue that embedded within a governance challenges related to such global deployment of nanotechnology are an array of exciting opportunities for transitioning toward a billion year period of human stewardship over planetary health known as the Sustainocene. The term “Sustainocene” was developed by Canberra-based eco-physician Dr. Bryan Furnass and has been promoted and expounded by the first author and others as a way of refocusing global policy discussion about the use of new technologies (such as nanotechnology) in assisting an indefinite number of future human generations to flourish as stewards over a sustainable and biodiverse environment.
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Keywords
DEFRA, Nanotherapeutics, REBSPA, OECD, ISO
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Type
Book chapter
Book Title
Nanotechnology Environmental Health and Safety (Second edition)
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Restricted until
2037-12-31
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