The TechKnow Chronicles IV

Working at TechKnow has been really, really cool. Everyone is overwhelmingly nice to me, no matter how many times I break the copy machine. My boss Roland, (the fella in the picture above) has inspired me to cultivate my voice with this blog. And the stories I’ve helped with, just in the past month, involve going to exotic locations like the Arctic and the Panama Canal. It can feel like documentary heaven sometimes.

Yet, by far the most enjoyable part of my job is listening to the scientists and researchers we interview on a weekly basis. I’m so used to gathering my daily information from online summarized listicles, it’s easy to see the world in black and white and forget that most pressing issues involve a fair amount of depth and complexity. Often times while listening to an interviewee, I am struck by how many issues have to be dealt with that I never even realized were problems in the first place.

For example, we’re currently doing a piece on the Arctic, so Phil Torres and the TechKnow crew boarded the USS Healy, a Coast Guard ice breaker that helps scientists run experiments and make observations. One scientist, Andy Mahoney of the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, explained that the rate of warming in the arctic is much faster than the global average because ice reflects sunlight, while water absorbs it, causing a cycle of more melting and more warming.

You might say yes Michael, global warming, we get it. But, did you think about the fact that all the melting is going to lead to huge new shipping lanes? And that, since ice floats and moves, navigating those shipping lanes will involve avoiding enormous pieces of floating ice. Mr. Mahoney is in charge of figuring out how to predict where floating ice will go. While he doesn’t personally believe oil companies should be drilling in the arctic (it’s virtually impossible to clean oil from ice if a spill happens) his research will ultimately benefit oil companies, as they’re the ones who will do the most shipping. Mr. Mahoney would rather help the situation than stand by and protest. A “don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good” kind of situation.

TechKnow is cool, but also important, because it explores nuance, rather than saying “THIS IS RIGHT, THIS IS WRONG” like so many other shows today.  The world is big and complicated and constantly changing, and if you’re examining an issue of substance, I challenge you to look beyond the listicle. You’ll probably learn about something you never even thought of.