The Centre for Responsible Nanotechnology wonder aloud whether nanotechnology will become an issue in the US presidential campaign. Perhaps we should hope that it doesn’t. While jobs, healthcare and taxes are issue that touch everyone, nanotechnology is still somewhat esoteric to mainstream politicians. Of course Tony Blair has mentioned the possibilities of nanotechnology but it has been given no more weight than genomics or plastic electronics, and pales into insignificance compared with the column inches generated over Iraq, or the European Constitution.
While there are no shortage of people willing to bet that nanotechnology will change everything, ourselves included, politicians and stock markets react to more immediate and tangible stimuli. Everyone involved in nanotechnology agrees that the time for nanotechnology will come, if not the precise flavour, (some would suggest the MNT community’s Half Baked Carb Karma as opposed to the plain vanilla favoured by mainstream industry), the nanotechnology market is dwarfed by the $30bn ice cream market, and it is still unusual to see ice cream becoming an election issue.
Now everyone, even politicians, knows what an ice cream is, although no one would risk alienating a section of the population by revealing a preference for garlic over vanilla (joking aside, Cientifica has conducted studies involving the application of nanotechnology to ice cream formulation, processing and packaging all play a part).
While a recent survey indicted widespread public ignorance over nanotechnology, the tricky issues of MNT, the environment, and even Sino American relations will help put any discussion of nanotechnology off limits. With the jury not even selected for many of these issues there are still far too many unknowns for focus group responses to point politicians in the vote winning direction, oh, and of course the lack of a nanotech industry doesn’t help.