One of the things I really dislike about much of the green movement is its romanticism and aversion of technology.
On Wednesday, Femme de Resistance over at Forceful and Moderate posted on this subject with particular reference to James Lovelock.
Today I’ve come across a New York Times article (registration required - or Bug Me Not for a username and password) about Stewart Brand, one of the founding lights of environmentalism and his dislike of the romanticism which dominates much of the environmental movement.
Like Lovelock he espouses such heresies as advocating nuclear power and GM crops. This advocacy is the result of a long term involvement with technology and the environment. He organised the first hacker’s conference and has been involved in the technological counter culture for a long time. He sees technology not as a threat, but as a great tool which can be used to improve human lives and the environment.
One of his revelatory moments was the failure of the predictions of doom in the 1970s. He was convinced, like many others, that population growth would mean mass shortages of essentials, that commodity prices would soar and we’d see mass starvation across the world. None of this happened, and its a salient lesson for many of today’s doom mongers, humans are amazingly adaptable and we will come up with solutions to problems, often without realising it.
This is an incredibly positive view, we are not perfect, but we have amazing skills which we can use to solve all problems, not simply environmental ones. Technological advance, not romanticism, will be the solution to environmental problems.
Its a message we as LibDems should listen to. If we are serious about the environment we should be looking towards innovation and technology for solutions.
