SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND FUTURE SUSTAINABILITY

The sustainability debate can be characterized as being between advocates of modifications to currently dominant forms of development, so as to reduce pollution and resource use, and those advocating more fundamental global reform, encompassing issues as diverse as equity and humanity's relationship with nature. The former views are challenged by critics that regard the exploitative attitude to nature, integral to them, as pivotal to our present unsustainable predicament, Science and technology play a decisive role in legitimating this exploitative relationship, with this outlook integral to the western scientific tradition. Serious consideration of alternatives requires a reappraisal of the application and practice of science and technology, focusing on the instrumental perception of nature at present central to them. In this article such a reappraisal is used to develop concepts that enable the use of science and technology in a sustainable would and the transition to it.