Nanotech is planet

from the mean,-green-technology dept.
A strongly-worded editorial by science and science-fiction writer Spider Robinson ("We can rewrite Genesis", 7 August 2001) on the potential for advanced nanotechnology to provide a high standard of living while reducing and even reversing human damage to the global ecosystem appeared in the Toronto, Canada Globe and Mail. Not surprisingly (if you are familiar with Robinson), the piece reads as if it might have been written by Robert A. Heinlein:
"The human race must pursue that glorious vision — if necessary, die trying. We dare not throttle back the machine at this point. It's a cranky old machine, jerry-built, run by committee, and very low on fuel. If we permit it to so much as stall, we'll never get it running again: there just aren't enough metals and fossil fuels left in the ground to start over.
"All we can do is pray it will run on fumes long enough to get us to nanotech, the Ultimate Gas Station."