The great Gray Goo debate is beginning to matter. Nanotechnology is toddling into commercialization ... companies are racing to scale up production of carbon nanotubes ... The crosscurrents of opinion that will shape nanotechnology's commercialization are bound to become stronger -- and more unpredictable -- as a broader range of participants join the Gray Goo debate. This article is about a Canadian organization called the ETC Group. (ETC stands for Eco-Equity Erosion, Technology Transformation and Corporate Control.) Under a different name in the 1990s, this group fought Monsanto on agro-bio-tech issues. They are advocates of the so-called "precautionary principle." |