Environmental Threats of the Future -NanoMaterials, Manmade Viruses & Biomimetic Robots

Forget about rising global water levels: Researchers, policymakers and environmental campaigners have identified 25 potential future threats to the environment including nanomaterials, manmade viruses and biomimetic robots. In addition to well-publicized risks such as toxic nanomaterials, the acidification of the ocean and increasingly frequent extreme weather events, the list includes some spooky scifi sounding possibilities:

• Biomimetic robots that could become new invasive species.

• Experiments involving climate engineering, for instance ocean 'fertilization' and deploying solar shields

• Increased demand for the biomass needed to make biofuel.

• Disruption to marine ecosystems caused by offshore power generation.

• Experiments to control invasive species using genetically engineered viruses.

William Sutherland, a zoologist at the University of Cambridge, led a series of horizon-scanning workshops where the threats where highlighted.

Some of the threats identified are more speculative, such as robots that imitate animal behavior and microbes made from synthetic molecules and might eventually behave like invasive species.

Posted by Jason McManus.

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Source link:

http://environment.newscientist.com/article/dn13505-named-25-environmental-threats-of-the-future.html

Comments

[upirons]

It's amazing we've lasted this long with as many ways to obliterate ourselves as we've found to this point.

[MikeyG]

Yes, indeed it IS a brave new world. Survival is the key word here. Its how imaginative we can all become to combat these future threats. Or, how can we live and deal with them?

[Fremon Sandlewould]

It is all becoming true like in the movies. I believe artists are the sensitive canaries in the coal mines the sniff their way to the future. We better just stop all technology now in its present state.

[Ron]

hmm. . .increasing demand for biomass for biofuel. Now that's something that maybe that algae bloom that chokes the mouths of the rivers in China could answer. Algae blooms are becoming an increasing disruptive presence in the oceans. Wonder if it would work the same as corn.
Problems have answers to open minds. The one that's really hard to beat is stupidity and inertia.

[Tom Madison]

check this site out:

WWW.skynetrobotics.com

[knoxvilledaniel]

Manmade viruses I could believe, yes, but runaway, run - amok nano machines & biomimetic robots are still the stuff of science fiction, FOR NOW, anyway. How many people subscribing to the Daily Galaxy watch the series " Eureka " as well as " X - Files " ? That kind of stuff happens all the time in their world
( s ).

Cautionary tales of technology run wild are intriguing, but it's borrowing trouble in many cases, even though we should be prepared for such things.