- - - Even if every American SUV owner were to buy a hybrid tomorrow, that wouldn't come close to offsetting the environmental damage being perpetrated around the globe. In fact, all the standards, cap-and-trade limits, and emission reductions that environmentalists have been pushing for may slow, but will never reverse, global warming. And that is Nordhaus and Shellenberger's inconvenient truth. "There is simply no way we can achieve an 80 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions," they write in their introduction, "without creating breakthrough technologies that do not pollute."
Environmentalists, therefore, have missed a huge opportunity. Rather than being leaders in solving the global climate crisis, they are content to be doomsayers and scolds. What Nordhaus and Shellenberger advocate is what might be called post-environmentalism, an ambitious new philosophy that isn't afraid to put people ahead of nature and to dream big about creating economic growth — neither of which environmentalists have been very good at. Their vision cuts across traditional political divides: It's pro-growth, pro-technology, and pro-environment. They have specific proposals about Brazilian rain forests, the auto industry, and global warming preparedness. But the heart of the book is its unabashed desire to create a new way to think about our problems. Just as computer technology fueled the economic boom that started in the mid '90s, greentech can drive the first boom of the new millennium. "Global warming," they write, "demands unleashing human power, creating a new economy, and remaking nature as we prepare for the future." - - -
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