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I would like to respond to this statement in the article:

Without getting into specific predictions the way Cousteau did: If that is as true as I suspect it is, the one thing it means is that we fool ourselves a whole lot. The entire picture we have created about ourselves, consciously, sub-consciously, un-consciously, you name it, is abjectly false. At least the one I think we have. Which is that we see ourselves as capable of engineering proactive changes in order to prevent crises from blowing up.

That erroneous self-image leads us to one thing only: the phantom prospect of a techno-fix becomes an excuse for not acting. In that regard, it may be good to remember that one of the basic tenets of the Limits to Growth report was that variables like world population, industrialization and resource depletion grow exponentially, while the (techno) answer to them grows only linearly.

Is the conclusion that technological growth invariably occurs linearly true? Hasn’t there been exponential growth in the IT and solar sectors? The same may be taking place in the field of nanotechnology. A number of technologists, among them Robert Zubrin, author of “Energy Victory: Winning the War on Terror by Breaking Free of Oil”, argue that Malthusian analyses of our energy quandary fail to account for viable alternatives that would allow for sustainable growth. Alcohol-based fuels dervied from agricultural waste and solar power could account for the vast bulk of our energy needs. What is lacking is the social and political resolve to implement them. The proven exponential potential of technological development is outlined in the work of Ray Kurzweil. In my opinion, a resort to fatalism (“Resilience”) isn’t called for…yet. The wall in front of us is looming, but there’s still time to pull back and switch to sustainable technologies to meet the needs of an advanced global civilization. To achieve this happy outcome will require the spread of a revolutionary spirit that conjoins the efforts of millions of determined people to halt and reverse the juggernaut of corporate greed. I am not arguing against the author’s point that human beings tend to blunder into avoidable crises, only that a “techno-fix” is an undisputed “phantom”.

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