The God Species, By Mark Lynas

Take off the green hair shirt – it doesn't suit anyone

Mark Lynas's thesis is that the green movement is right in its diagnosis but disastrously wrong in its prescriptions.

Homo sapiens is the only species ever to have had the godlike power to wipe out life on Earth, and is close to crossing a whole range of ecological boundaries beyond which recovery is impossible. But we're also the only species who can save the planet, and hair-shirt green policies will not do it. To row back from the boundaries, we need technologies such as nuclear power and geo-engineering, and economic incentives such as paying people more to protect natural systems than they could get from exploiting them. This may be controversial with the greens, but it certainly convinced me.