The environmental dimension of technology times three

The author distinguishes two lines of technological development: that gener ally termed abiotic technology (tool - machine - automatic system), and tha t of biotic technology (human strength - functional properties of materials transformed by living organisms - cloning, genetic manipulation etc.), whi ch has until now been rather overlooked. He claims that nature today is at risk from both lines. Technology, by which people have established themselv es as the only ontological creative beings, is also a naturally cultural ph enomenon: it competes with, influences and exploits nature, but it is a sub system of culture (tt part of its implicit and explicit order). On the basi s of fossil fuels two abiotic systems of the global technosphere have emerg ed in this century: a) the Largely stationary machine subsystem: thermal Fe wer station - electricity grid machines and other stationary mechanical ins truments; b) the largely mobile machine subsystem: oil refineries - the int ernational network of vendors of petroleum products - mobile machinery used in agriculture, transport, the military, construction, etc. The microelect ronic level of abiotic technology, which is the most open to new structural information (to science). may in the future form the missing link between traditional abiotic technology and biotechnology. Of course, the new biotec hnology may present a hidden threat to living nature that is even greater t hat from humans' traditional activities in the explicit order. Smajs believ es that we are entering a time when the development of technology will have to take account of its acceptability to the host system of nature, if huma ns and their culture on Earth are to survive.