Biodiversity

A more balanced impact of technology transfer would help contribute to the sustainability of the life support systems on our planet including biodiversity.

Sustainability OpEd by David Maskalick, Ph.D.

Until today the prevailing goal of capitalism was constant economic growth regardless of the degradation of our planet’s life support systems including a) interacting ecosystems, b) limited natural resources, and c) our cooperative human societies. However, constant economic growth is obviously not sustainable without further degradation of our planet’s life support systems. The impossibility of constant economic growth is confirmed by today’s conditions including the current economic crisis, the fossil fuel crisis, housing and clothing shortages, predicted food shortages, predicted fresh drinking water shortages, and social unrest like terrorism. From this day forward the goal of capitalism should be to a) sustain all the life on our planet, b) sustain the lives of people and society on our planet, and c) sustain the economies and businesses on our planet, since the sustainability of each is related to the sustainability of the other. 

People must recognize that the negative impacts of ecological degradation and social degradation are real costs to our economy and our businesses since they both negatively impact sustainability. On the other hand, a profit should be recognized for the successful nurturing of our ecology and successful improvements to developing cooperative societies. The nurturing of ecosystems, the wise management of finite natural resources, and assistance and education given to developing cooperative societies should be considered wise investments toward improving sustainability. Once sustainability becomes the main goal of capitalism, the demand should increase dramatically for inventions which improve the ability of people to positively impact the sustainability of all ecosystems, natural resources, people, and cooperative human societies. Furthermore, with sustainability as the main goal of capitalism, the wealthiest entrepreneurs will be those with the best products to help people nurture sustainability.

Association of University Technology Managers AUTM and Sustainability

“In the period 2000-08, U.S. universities received 147,515 invention disclosures, filed 83,988 new patent applications, and signed 41,598 license and option agreements, of which 4,566 were with startup companies based on university research.” This is a quote from ‘Defending the University Tech Transfer System’ from Arundeep S. Pradhan president of the Association of University Technology Managers.(8,9,10) AUTM also published ‘The Better World Report 2009 - Innovations From Academic Research That Positively Impact Global Health’ which has 23 chapters describing inventions and their impact.(11) Fifteen chapters refer to a healthcare impact, three refer to a food supply impact, and one each refer to geophysical, ecological, fossil fuel alternative, building material, and water quality impacts. 

Op/Ed by David Maskalick, Ph.D.