It is often a truism that what is out of sight, is out of mind. That is especially true when applied to environmentalism and the role technology plays. One has to commend the job advertisers and marketers do when they portray new 'Green' technologies that are meant to be our savior. People are quick to forget that it is technology that is putting the planet in peril; does the industrial revolution ring any bells? Sure the term 'industrial' might imply coal mines, polluting trains, factories and machines, but the long term results is what affects us the most. Today, many people believe that technology has overcome those gross polluting realities. We only need to look to some of the worst environmental disasters that were not caused by Mother Nature but occurred in the past 30 years ie. Chernobyl, BP oil spill this past summer, to see the affect technology has still.
On the other hand, there can be very real solutions in technology, but It is a catch-22. Often the output is much smaller than the cost of research and development. Take the new Chevy Volt for example, meant to be the harbinger of the next generation of clean automobiles (oxymoron?). While it is certainly much 'cleaner' and 'green' than its rivals, the cost of producing and developing the car greatly outweighs the benefit. Take the example of lettuce in Bill McKibben's book Maybe One. The amount of energy used to produce, transport and sell a head of lettuce greatly outweighs the caloric benefit. Perhaps the Luddites got it right after all by destroying the source of our environmental degradation...
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