Is science fiction becoming science fact?

In my opinion, I believe technology will play a huge role in saving our planet. In the current state that we are in, we must rely on technology to find solutions to our environmental problems. Although advances in technology helped to create these problems, I think that it is ultimately up to the people to make smart decisions about how to put technology to good use, rather than abusing our planet. Personally, I think it's a little far-fetched that technology will overcome us, but I guess it's not out of the question. Just in the past week, technology has been in the news a lot. One article said, "Machines will achieve human-level artificial intelligence by 2029, a leading US inventor has predicted." (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7248875.stm) Also, I recently saw an article that said that players will be able to control video games with their brain waves. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3485918.stm) These both seem pretty incredible to me, and even though there's no guarantee that they will come to full fruition, these are just two examples of the huge leaps in technology that are possible. 100 years ago no one could have understood the kind of world that we live in today, so I don't think that we can possibly imagine what our world will be like 100 years from now.

I'm optimistic that with these technological advances, we will find ways to reverse some of our effects on the environment and also decrease our future impact. If we could find a clean and safe energy source, already our environment would be in much better condition. There are brilliant scientists and inventors working on this issue and so many more, and with better funding and support, I think that some great solutions could be discovered. With the help of government subsidies and incentives, these technologies could be successfully incorporated into our society.

I also think that technology is very important for dealing with our waste. Ideally, we could go through our landfills and find ways to reuse a lot of the materials currently found there, and then compost or decompose the rest. Then for our future waste production, we could have more of a closed-loop system where everything that we got rid of had a certain place to go and a new purpose.

Of course, technology alone cannot save us. I think that governments need to take the first step in supporting cleaner technologies, and they need to make it desirable for corporations to adopt greener practices. This way, our societies learn to function in a different and environmentally-friendly way. Also, citizens need to be conscious of their use of technology and really know the effects that they have on the earth so that they can understand why it is important to change our habits.