I thought you would find this article by Alex Steffen from Worldchanging.com of interest, as well as the ensuing comments. Alex argues that yes we need to utilise new ‘bright green’ ideas to transform the world, but that doesn’t mean we should just do anything. Rather he argues that we need to work along with nature. http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/009704.html

“The second implication is that we know what we’re doing well enough to get the results we want from planetary engineering, even if we don’t have a better climate blueprint. We don’t. The magnitude of our ignorance about even the most fundamental aspects of the planetary systems on which we depend staggers the informed mind. We’re just coming to understand the climate system. We’ve discovered only a tiny fraction of the planet’s species. We are almost still in the age of alchemy when it comes to truly understanding all the interplay of influences that make up an ecosystem. We are simply not up to the task of running the biosphere as a whole like a machine, because we don’t have a copy of the operating manual, and we’re probably still illiterate anyways. This may be true for generations to come.”

In the comments, by David E. there is an interesting example provided of human intervention which I copy here:
“Flathead Lake in Northwest Montana is the largest body of fresh water west of the continental divide. Kokanee salmon used to be in abundant supply. The salmon were a natural food supply for wildlife and humans forever. Then one-day scientist’s decided that they could increase the salmon population by adding more food to the system. They introduced a little shrimp species into the lake so the salmon would have more food. The desired outcome was salmon would thrive and populations would flourish. It was a win win solution for wildlife and humans. Suddenly the salmon populations failed to the point that Kokanee salmon are now extinct in the Flathead Lake system. The Salmon are gone but the shrimp are thriving. Turns out that the shrimp foreign to the eco system have no predators, other species that want to eat them for food. Further, the salmon didn’t eat the shrimp once they were in the lake, they may have in fact ate them in the laboratory. But turns out when the salmon were feeding near the surface in the day time the shrimp were on the bottom of the lake. When the salmon returned to the deep water at night, the shrimp went up to the surface to feed. Soon the shrimp were eating the same food source as the salmon. The new competitor the shrimp with no natural presence in the lake prior won the contest and the salmon died and became extinct. Now no one can figure out how to get rid of the shrimp without killing everything in the lake and it is a big lake.”

I’m not talking about rediscovering morality or fixing broken societies here, simply addressing the big issue without getting distracted. If we don’t do that, and spend our time discussing the relative merits of the various shades of Green while the world starts to resemble something out of Mad Max then future generations will remember us as the one that had the chance to do something, but blew it.

My experience of the ‘environmental movement’, the corporate world and government is there is a real strata of cultural and moral values.

Just as there are ‘deep greens and eco warriors’ there is a large portion of the country still in love with a romanticized English countryside that is unchanging, equally afraid of new technology, and they don’t want to change; in fact many deep greens would have us return to the mythical ‘past’ when life was ‘better’ and ’simpler’, thus not wrestling with the many complexities of life as it is now.

Just as there are the ‘light greens’ who are happy to compost, fly less, recycle and shop ethically, there is a post modern portion of society who see that we do have an effect on the planet, and believe that we can do something to help repair it through simple actions.

And there are the bright greens, who aren’t afraid of harnessing technology and architecture to design a new world where the ‘built environment’ is made to resemble natural living systems (ie Worldchanging.com and Cradle to Cradle) – obviously you fall somewhere in this camp.

The murky sticking point I see in your arugument (and that of many NGO’s we work alongside, such as Greenpeace and FoE, as well as the government bods such as DfT and DECC), is that the choice seems to be between environment or economics most of the time.

Many in today’s Britain would have us believe that scientific materialism was the highest aspiration. Others a fundamental religious belief. Others that economics is the highest ‘god’.

My conclusions, looking at myself and wading through my years of activism as a peacenick, 80’s born-too-late hippy, new age wannabe healer, gardener, greenpeace volunteer and 4×4 activist, as well as my years of working for aerospace and multinational corporates, is that we now are experiencing a real breakdown in our values as human beings. Many would say the 60’s hippies changed us unalterably from a dismally entrapped existence that we had outgrown, but failed to finish the job. They stopped, and left the work undone. We are all in need of a new moral compass that has integrity, conscience, hope, and brings us together rather than separates us.

With your good intentions about nanotechnology and GM, there is a real distrust of science because our moral values haven’t caught up to the technological advancements, and we see the real possibility that the ’solutions’ could have devastating results.

Simultaneously, the nature of us as humans is to take risks and to move forward and we seem stuck in this ambiguous stalemate where nothing big seems to be happening just when we need it to happen. I would suggest that there is something else at work now, and we need to be mindful that major systems are falling apart and we are in a stage where we need to create something new.

Perhaps its best to debate and dialogue about these things, but not get angry at the ‘other’. I know – I’ve done it enough in my life.