Fwd: ETC News: Nanotech and the Great Grey/Green Goo Debate

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ETC News: Nanotech and the Great Grey/Green Goo Debate

 

ETC Group Communiqué

Released May 16, 2003

Issue # 80

 

Nanotech Un-gooed!

Is the Grey/Green Goo Brouhaha the Industry's Second Blunder?

 

The full text of the 8-page Communiqué is available at www.etcgroup.org

 

Issue: When Prince Charles raised concerns about the emerging revolution in

nanotechnology at the end of April, tabloid headlines of Grey Goo were

catapulted onto front pages of English-speaking press and elsewhere, raising the

spectre of the great GM debate all over again. But nanotechnology - despite

being one of the best funded new technologies in the world - is still little

known outside scientific and business circles and is not regulated by

governments. Scientists and industry proponents have attacked the Prince for

having the audacity to raise concerns about the future impacts of atom-scale

manipulations. The threat of Grey Goo (nanoscale mechanical robots reproducing

uncontrollably) has become the itsty-bitsy boogey man, handily dismissed by

industry and Nobel laureates as a technical impossibility. But in their zeal to

pooh-pooh the Prince, they are ignoring the very real and present dangers that

nanotechnologies pose, including the potential toxicity of nanoparticles and the

farther-reaching implications of nanobiotechnology.

 

Context: Even while the Grey Goo theory is being pressed into service as straw

man, measurable scientific advances are being made that will make some form of

molecular manufacture a reality sooner than anyone thought possible.

 

Implications: We are not ready for this latest and greatest industrial

revolution. Public debate about the societal implications of nanotechnology for

the environment, the economy, labour, and democracy is paramount. We must

establish laboratory protocols to protect workers from possibly hazardous

materials, perform the necessary toxicology studies to find out where the

specific problems are, and regulate nanotechnology research and

commercialization to prevent an asbestos-like public health crisis or a Green

Goo (nanobio) catastrophe.

 

Policy: Prince Charles has reportedly called for the Royal Society to convene

and discuss the implications of nanoscale manipulations. On June 11, 2003, a

seminar at the European Parliament on nanotechnology intended for civil society,

policy makers and the media will be held at the European Parliament in Brussels

(For more information, see http://www.etcgroup.org/article.asp?newsid=390).

Ultimately, governments must negotiate a legally-binding International

Convention for the Evaluation of New Technologies (ICENT).

 

 

 

 

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