Summary of roundtable discussions

This week we went through our roundtable discussion presentations. Through involvement of this discussion, I get familiar with the process and flow of roundtable discussion. The following is my summary about roundtable discussions presented by other 3 groups.

The topic for first group is green chemistry. There is one moderator, 2 supporters and 2 opponents. Green chemistry, also called sustainable chemistry, is a chemical philosophy encouraging the design of products and processes that reduce or eliminate the use and generation of hazardous substances. The supporters stated that currently global warming is a major issue all around the world, it is urgent to reduce the greenhouse gases. Green chemistry is a renewable and energy efficient technology. It uses safe chemicals and no harmful by-products are created during the process. So it should be focused on. But the opponents pointed out that it is better to deploy green chemistry in those developing countries. In developed countries, the industry was already fully established. Switching it to green chemistry technology will cost a lot. It seems not to be economical. I would to say that it is not necessary to destroy the established industries and rebuild them with green chemistry technology. It is optimistic to modify some important processes and gradually achieve the target.

Second group discussed whether microchip should be implanted to human body. Supporters listed its usefulness from a few fields like convenience, accuracy and fastness. The main point is that the microchip can record the human medical condition accurately. In case of an emergency, it is easily retrieved by doctors. But the opponents argued that this tiny device is moveable and its position cannot be controlled. If it goes to your heart by accident, the result could be disastrous. Human body may actually resist such an implantation. The microchip implanted in human body brought great convenience, at the same time it also brought potential identity theft. If your personal information was obtained by some intelligent hackers, it will be a huge lost. Under such a scenario, privacy is also an important factor to be considered if you decided to accept microchip implantation. I agree to the opponents. Microchip implantation seems far from reality and should be based on personal will.

The last topic presented is carbon filter technology. The supporters stated that it is a system of setup installed in factories to purify the exhausted gases. A graph was drawn to illustrate how it works. And such an act will help companies win good reputations. The opponents argued with logical thinking: Since such a technology is attractive, why there are no implementations in reality? I feel more towards the supporters. Sometimes technology implementation is decided by a lot of other social factors but not technology itself. As a company, it is responsible to do a part in the fight against global climate change.

That is all my understanding for all the topics discussed. I gained more in-depth knowledge about them.