What is the role, responsibility, and accountability of Media and Information technology and society in Earth system research?

The media today is oriented to sustainability of development rather than sustainability of life. The question is based on premises (hypothesis) that the post-modern technology can be used without harming natural resources or destroying the biosphere and ecosystem.

In September 2008, the world was shattered by a “global crisis” which struck in a decade, marked as “globalisation”. The crisis was neither sudden nor unexpected. Besides the prevailing “sustainability of development” backed by the international capital, the counter argument voiced as “sustainability of living” by ecologists was not given a fair opportunity. The crisis has over shadowed globalization. The world agenda today is surviving the recession or reviving the market. Purposes and policies of the “globalising world” have fallen from the headlines.

How did the so-called information society come to this impasse, and what was the role or responsibility of Media?

In a formal proposal to ICSU, I have summarily concluded that, if not technology, the information technology can perhaps be domesticated. The ultimate challenge is not the technology but the MAN —dependent on technology,

Key Words: Sustainability, technology, information society —growth or survival