I looked at the Title… then I speculated…. I smell “Watermelon”

Then I looked at the bio note of the author and read “social advocate, and former adviser to Australian Greens senator Bob Brown.”

Satisfied my sense of smell is working well I will make this comment

Some men (and even some women) have worked to improve the lot of humanity, inventing silver bullets and mixing magic puddings -

Whilst the small minded, negative, Malthusian levelers and Luddites have cast scorn on their efforts,

despite jumping to take advantage of every innovation from the printing press to the internet and clambering on planes -

to rush off to envirommental conferences to debate the rights of other individuals to choose be alchemists.

Lets face it, without the inspired individuals who see beyond the pig trough of the environazi, we would be looking forward to living like a 17th century French peasant…

instead of, like the greens, looking back toward it as the time of the “Enlightenment”

from the comments ….. I see Squeers is in approval of this load of enviropap…

which means I must be right

Antiseptic:
"You seem to have worked yourself into rather a lather".

A lather? Hardly.
Would love to say more but am pressed for time.

Antiseptic,
Probably tides aren't sufficient to generate much electricity, but if energy output is more than energy input, then there is a free energy machine.

Tides, wind and solar can produce free energy, and there have also been perpetual motion machines developed which ran off a liquid that formed a gas with the heat from sunlight and condensed when in shade (and this was enough to rotate a wheel endlessly if half the wheel was in shade and the other half was in sunlight).

My bet for long term fuel production is using nanotechnology to create a form of artificial photosynthesis and produce a type of biofuel.

Remembering that carbon plus hydrogen produces a hydrocarbon, and there is plenty of carbon and hydrogen.

There is work progressing towards artificial photosynthesis, but without visionaries (who are mostly men) there will be no progress.

In regards to the differences between men and women, only a feminist or university academic would think there are no differences.

All they have to do is look around them.

How many men want to walk down the street wearing a skirt, high heel shoes and carrying a handbag.

Not many at all, (and only a feminist, university academic or perhaps member of the Green party would think that they would).

More on the above

http://www.nanowerk.com/news/newsid=21303.php

http://www.economist.com/node/21015679?fsrc=nwl

I say "Let them eat cake" Col Rouge.

Or, a personal favourite that was popular in central Queensland in the 80's:

"Let the b@stards freeze in the dark!"

But I guess the "freezing" part is less relevant now, what with all the global warming and so on ...

Appreciate all of the comments above. To clarify a little:

1) There are many good men and women out there working on clean technologies that can serve a genuine conserver society – a society that lives within its means. All praise to them. The article was about a particular pathology where some folk develop a deep seated belief that they have found a 'silver bullet' technology that defies scientific reality.

2) From my experience the gender connection in this pathology is very strong, but this is not a slight against men, any more than say, Anorexia Nervosa, is a slight against women – because some women are victims of that behaviour. Both genders exhibit extreme behaviours at times and we should be mature enough to simply face up to those behaviours squarely. Social discussion of them is the best remedy so that they are brought out into the open.

I should add that extreme gender behaviours generally apply to a set of individuals, it would be wrong to stereotype either gender altogether owing to the affliction of some.

Chris (author)