Ethics of technology

1. What to do with ethically dubious scientific advances? by Frank Swain and How Fanta Was Created for Nazi Germany by Matthew Blitz

2. Ocean snail is first animal to be officially endangered by deep-sea mining

“This is an important step towards alerting policymakers to the potential impacts deep-sea mining may have on biodiversity,” says Lisa Levin, a biologist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California.”

MORE:

Write rules for deep-sea mining before it’s too late

Seabed mining is coming — bringing mineral riches and fears of epic extinctions

3. Are Bioplastics Better for the Environment? It’s Complicated by Anja Krieger

” Many people assume all bioplastics are made from plants and can break down completely in the environment. But that’s not the case. ”

Besides the obvious greenwashing, interesting implications for arable land use: wouldn’t we be better off making (bio)plastics from fossil fuels?

“For some plastics, the same polymer chains can be made from renewable sources. The resulting bioplastics are chemically identical to their fossil counterparts. PET, for example — short for polyethylene terephthalate, which is the stuff most bottles are made of — can be synthesized from fossil fuel products or plants like sugarcane. The resulting material is the exact same. Such non-biodegradable bioplastics behave in the environment just like conventional plastic and persist for an unknown but long amount of time. “