Research In Barry Commoner’s Ecological Technology Thought

Serious ecological crisis happened in the United States after World War II. Many fields such as agriculture, industry, transportation industry, energy industry and so on,had suffered from environmental pollution and ecological destruction. Ecological crisis not only affected the normal development of the economy, but also threaten people’s life and health security. People waked up gradually and began to reflect on the cause of the ecological crisis. Different industries and different classes of people guessed the cause of the ecological crisis. However, all of them can not explain the real reason scientifically. Barry Commoner put forward that the real reason for the ecological crisis in America is a large-scale production technical change after World War Ⅱ on the basis of critiquing of the two traditional reasons which were "population growth" and "life rich said" of the ecological crisis. That is to say, in the fields of agriculture, industry, transportation industry and energy industry which dominated the development of national economy and people’s livelihood, the technology that can bring higher economic benefits but more pollution took the place of the one that can bring lower economic benefits and less polluting. Production technology for such change, because on the linear theory of science and the reductionism of technology. And the deeper reason which leads people to self-destruction is the economic factor of simply pursuing the production efficiency and the political factor of being continuously greedy for political power.After exploring the real reason for the ecological crisis in America post World War Ⅱ, Barry Commoner further explain the solution of ecological crisis. He pointed out that only to overcome the technical, scientific, economic and political disadvantages that result in the ecological crisis, that get rid of the technical rationality and anthropocentrism, with the postmodern ecological technology thought to solve the ecological crisis. On the strategy arrangement, it’s need to redesign the production technology, so that it is beneficial to the ecological environment, that adopt ecological technology on the production source and prevent the happening of the ecological environment problems, technology to improve is to prevent. On the path to choose, it’s need to use ecology thoughts to construct technology, to improve technical process, and reconstruct the economic and political in ecology thought. To be specific, in order to solve the ecological crisis, we need to change the existing technology circles, and make it in harmony with the ecosystem. This needs to redesign industry, agriculture, transportation and energy industry and other fields to meet the ecological requirements. It’s necessary to change the economic model that maximize short-term profit and dominant investment decision-making, and formulate appropriate political measures to ensure the realization of public environmental democracy political rights, that use the thoughts of ecology to guide the social action of the economic and political affairs, solve the ecological crisis fundamentally.Barry Commoner’s ecological technology thought have important enlightenment function for developed countries, especially developing country’s economical and environmental development. Take China for example, since China is now facing or will face the environmental problems that the United States once met in the process of economic development after the Second World War, so Barry Commoner’s ecological technology thought can help China socially manage technology accord with the requirements of ecology in the process of economic development, help China actually cosider the environmental requirements and continually improve the ability of independent research and development of ecological technology when using western technology. The downside is, Barry Commoner’s ecological technology thought isn’t suitable for the basic national conditions that China is a populous country.