As powerful as they are, capitalism and tech progress won’t solve all of our environmental challenges. They won’t automatically deal with pollution (of which greenhouse gas pollution is the most harmful), protect endangered species and vulnerable communities. So we need people to advocate for wise policies (like conservation, pollution limits, safeguards against exploiting children, and a carbon tax), and responsive governments to put them in place. We can also demand that gear-makers like Apple design their products to last longer and to be more easily repaired, so that we throw them away less often.

I wish they'd ended the article here.

It was starting to feel like they were presenting a capitalism-coated silver bullet for environmental concerns, and right after they pulled up from that...they suggested that capitalism is going to solve environmental concerns in developing nations. I'm glad this article largely stuck to describing a phenomenon and not telling us to stake our future on it, but the line "...I predict that this Enlightenment will spread from the US and other rich countries to low-income parts of the world, and we’ll finally enter a stable and healthy relationship with the whole Earth." is just...Odd to me. Maybe I'm misreading it, but if they're claiming that market forces alone are going to be the leading force in solving climate change, I have to express my doubts.

Thanks for sharing, though! I liked this article a lot, my complaint notwithstanding.