But none of the 'silver bullet men' are anywhere near as deluded as those who believe that 'our planetary civilisation is being confronted by a dizzying array of chronic problems – from climate change, to desertification, to ocean acidification...'

Certainly an interesting article. I've never thought of science and technology as a male pathology. Blokes and their sheds - that sort of thing.

There's a spate of these articles appearing who say women have one sort of brain and men have another. That's why women are better at housework, or the arts while the men hunt wilderbeast down George Street. It's rubbish of course and one might be better focused on looking at power relationships rather than brains.

Even so, there is a fetish about technology that it is a magic bullet for saving us from ourselves. Still, if you have a brain tumour, you'd prefer the surgeon to have modern diagnostic tools and lasers to cut it out rather than using a blunt spoon.

Cheryl:"It's rubbish of course and one might be better focused on looking at power relationships rather than brains."

Some evidentiary support of this rather bald claim would be good.
Women have had a great deal of power wihn our society for a very long time, both publicly and privately, yet the lament of women that they lack power seems to be constant.

It seems to me that when women are given a choice of working less they nearly always take it and when they are given the opportunity not to work at all they grab it with relish. No one could argue that being female makes you stupid, but it does make you subject to the usual female drivers, just as being male makes you subject to the relevant male ones.

It's not universal, certainly, but it's a pretty good way to bet. Goldman Sachs did a whole report on the subject I've referenced elsewhere.

On the subject of blokes and their sheds, it's probably a fair comment. Men love stuff that does stuff. Further, we've evolved from a long line of people who had to do stuff the hard way and we really love being able to do it the easy way. It's even better if we can figure out the new best way.

Some blokes take it to heart a bit much perhaps, but in my experience there are lots of blokes who like nothing more than standing around a shed working out how to do a job the best way. There is no real equivalent in female culture, it seems to me: women are far more task-focussed than that and will just do it the hard way if it needs to be done, then complain until some easier way is found...

It should also be pointed out to the author that many of the most seminal developments in our history have been the work of "crackpots". It takes a certain type of personality to endure the slings and arrows perhaps.

“The very same masculine imagination that brought about our dominant nexus in history is right now determining how we progress through these precarious, uncertain times ahead.”

Hardly - rather, the determinant lies with females of our species and how many children in totality they produce. The number of men involved with them, and the male’s respective fertility rates, are something of an irrelevance.

Multiplication of the female fertility rate, by the urge to shop (either for boys’ toys, or for whatever women want) and the energy needed to produce the items: that determines our progress along a road towards continued pollution and resource scarcity - or changing track towards improved tenure on this planet.

Just for the record, I find mechanical stuff and technological wizardry completely boring. My wife does most of the drilling, building and repairing at our place and when the task is beyond her, we get in a tradie. This stuff about men and their sheds is utter rubbish. I've never had a shed, never wanted one and resisted all attempts to inveigle me into having one.

I like to read, go to art galleries with my very knowledgeable wife and go to the footy and cricket with my son, who also has an aversion to sheds and all they entail. I'm with Cheryl on this one. This notion of inherent male or female characteristics is utter nonsense.

I wondered how long it would take the author to get to a gender wars or climate change theme, because these issues are all that occupy the Green's feeble minds. Unfortunately I had to read the whole repetitive 'mere male' style article because he slips both in right at the end. Its also has, oddly, quite sexist undertones.

The fact is that the Greens don't want low cost or infinite energy systems of any sort because not only would their party would be consigned to history, but they would no longer be able to blame and punish people with their austerity campaigns. The Greens despise technology and progress. If you had an idea its obviously the wrong door to knock on.

Unsurprisingly, they do support wind and solar because its expensive and inefficient and costs us dearly in the long run.

Learn from what happened to Spain.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a2PHwqAs7BS0