Technology is not the answer

From Building the Green Economy (p. 49) - a conversation with Gopal Dayaneni:

"There's not a technical solution to our environmental problems. There may be technical things that we can use to help us transition, but the solution is deeply political, and deeply structural and societal. It's about really changing the way we organize our relationship to resources."

This is an important point. The idea that we can successfully navigate the environmental crises we face simply by finding the right technology (as Thomas Friedman, Jeffrey Sachs, or even Al Gore seem to imply) has never rung true to me. We need to change our "relationship to resources." Dayaneni is referring to the broadest political and social context, but for me personally it means my relationship to the natural world, to my food, and to my "stuff."We've been working on these relationships, and it's interesting to see that even though we're very motivated to make these changes, they take time to incorporate into our lifestyle.

All the more reason to get started now! That's the purpose of our Living Green Living Good in Central New York group - to work together to create models of sustainable, yet satisfying, lifestyles so it might not take so long for the next wave of people to adopt them. And that's "lifestyles" in the plural. The details of each person's choices will be different - the common element is that they "...meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."