The “New Environmentalism”, the Next Set of Problems and the Darn 2.0 Meme Again
Jay Parkhill March 15th, 2008
Time Magazine online has a piece on "environmentalism 2.0" and the promise of technology to lead the planet out of the climate mess technology has created.
I love technology and I am really fired up about the level of attention climate issues have gotten in the past year or so. Still, every time I see one of these pieces I remember a line from Jared Diamond’s book Collapse. I don’t have the book in front of me, so to paraphrase: technology has never solved any problems without creating a whole set of new ones (if you don’t believe this I have some Yucca Mountain real estate to sell you).
Fossil fuels have enabled many things (like this blog post). We desperately need a non-greenhouse gas-emitting replacement for them, of course, and the sooner the better.
At the same time, let’s not forget to keep an eye out for the unintended consequences. Maybe in the next go-round (assuming we squeak through this one) we can figure out how to address the problems before they become crises.
P.S. Dear Time editors: please stop referring to things as "___ 2.0". Do you have any idea how 2007 that sounds?