A recent article in the Swiss Beobachter magazine called The Auto of the Future (in German) reviewed four examples of research in Switzerland to make lighter and more fuel-efficient autos. It's an example of technologists concentrating on one isolated problem (how to propel cars more efficiently) instead of taking the longer view (how does the steadily growing number of automobiles affect our quality of life). I wrote the following Letter to the Editor in response:

When I became interested in sustainability and writing, I decided to write a novel. It would be a novel based at some arbitrary point in time, not too far in the future. It would have one foot in the present, so as to be familiar and believable, and one foot in the future, attempting to explore ideas about what a sustainable world might look like.

Although I'd never written a book, and had only written a few nonfiction articles in the past, I already knew what the book's message would be: We cannot expect technology to solve all of our problems. Although technology will play an important role, the majority of the necessary changes will be lifestyle changes that we must make.

Since I currently do not read much fiction, I wasn't sure if such a book already exists. It appears that I have just found one -- sort of. Published in 1995 by the late Pierre Thuillier, the book is called La Grande Implosion. This translates to The Great Implosion, with the subtitle Report on the Collapse of the West 1999-2002. The book describes what could happen to the West if it does not start making some major changes.

To what extent is it the media's responsibility to assist in the dissemination of information about sustainable development (SD)? This rather provocative question became the main topic of a round-table discussion entitled The Role of the Media from the Perspective of Sustainable Development, which took place during the National Forum on Education for Sustainable Development on 29 January 2005 at the University of Geneva.

Dr. Jacques Mirenowicz, co-editor of the Swiss-French magazine La Revue Durable, began by saying that the subject of sustainability is a complex one, and the media is needed to simplify the subject for public consumption. This is, after all, what the media does every day: They take possibly complex subjects and present them in a simpler form. Dr. Mirenowicz went on to say that not only is SD complex, but it doesn't fit in the "time frame" that the media typically work with. That is, the media deal best with the present: It is much easier to describe what happened in Iraq today than to explain how global warming and lifestyles of over-consumption will affect the planet over the coming decades.

It is often said these days that the planet cannot bear the burden of everyone in the developing world owning as many cars, refrigerators, and other consumer goods as Americans, Europeans, or Japanese on average do. From the standpoint of global justice and equality, however, the solution cannot be a system of consumer apartheid that upholds western binge habits but denies the poor a decent standard of living. Instead, the rich need to curb their outsized material appetites.

Source: State of the World 2004

Some technology advocates do not actually come out and say it, but they strongly imply that advances in technology will solve our environmental problems, and that we in the developed world can continue to lead our lives of relative luxury. But they ignore the fact pointed out in the quote above: Considering the environmental damage that the developed North is inflicting on the planet, imagine what will happen when China and India, which together account for over 30% of the world's population, develop a middle-class. They aspire to a consumer lifestyle currently held up by the North -- and particularly the U.S. -- as the model for a modern society.