I = PAT - Technology

Technology

See also: Environmental technology and Appropriate technology

The T variable in the I=PAT equation represents how resource intensive the production of affluence is; how much environmental impact is involved in creating, transporting and disposing of the goods, services and amenities used. Improvements in efficiency can reduce resource intensiveness, reducing the T multiplier. Since technology can affect environmental impact in many different ways, the unit for T is often tailored for the situation I=PAT is being applied to. For example, for a situation where the human impact on climate change is being measured, an appropriate unit for T might be greenhouse gas emissions per unit of GDP.

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Famous quotes containing the word technology:

    The successor to politics will be propaganda. Propaganda, not in the sense of a message or ideology, but as the impact of the whole technology of the times.
    Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980)

    Technology is not an image of the world but a way of operating on reality. The nihilism of technology lies not only in the fact that it is the most perfect expression of the will to power ... but also in the fact that it lacks meaning.
    Octavio Paz (b. 1914)