Mayday Mayday: Invasion of the Climate Snatchers...
1st May 2008 - Day of Action Against False Solutions to Climate Change
Nanotechnology
Nanotechnology has been described both as the next industrial revolution and as the operating system for a new era of corporate and state control. Put simply nanotechnology is the manipulation of matter at a size so small that it is measured in nanometres (one billionth of a metre), the scale of atoms and molecules.
Like GM, a technology that many people find unpaletable is using Climate Change as the smokescreen for comercialisation. Last year DEFRA funded a report into ways that nanotech could help the fight against climate change. The report looked at fuel additives, photovoltaics (solar cells), the hydrogen economy, electricity storage and insulation; and claimed that "In these areas nanotechnology could contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by up to 2 % in the near term and up to 20 % by 2050 with similar reductions in air pollution being realised".
Problems with nanotech......
There is a growing body of scientific opinion which claims that a unique set of problems are associated with the toxicity of manufactured nano-particles. The concern is two fold: Firstly that by being reduced to the nano-scale materials become more reactive and therefore potentially more toxic. Secondly, our bodies have not evolved to recognise nano-particles. Prior to their deliberate manufacture as nano-particles relatively few particles of this size existed in the world. As a result our bodies' protective filters, from the skin to the lining of the lungs to the blood/brain barrier, do not recognise and filter out nano-particles.
Nanotechnology opens a new world of ownership and corporate control. Just as biotechnology's ability to manipulate genes went hand in hand with the patenting of life, so too nanotechnology's ability to manipulate molecules has led to the patenting of matter. The last few years has seen a gold rush to claim patents at the nanoscale. Over 800 nano-related patents were granted in 2003, and the numbers are increasing year on year.
For a full and indepth briefing on Nanotech, please check out this
Coporate Watch report
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