Meanwhile, only minuscule amounts of money are budgeted for the research and development of new and renewable energy sources. The budgets for alleviating air and water pollution have actually been cut back. More research has always been the rallying cry of procrastinators. The Japanese economist Shibata Kai has identified what he calls a law of the calamity of destruction . Maintaining a modern industrial infrastructure requires vast amounts of resources and energy - more than the global ecosystem can possibly sustain.
Technological solutions are the centrepiece of Japanese industrial and corporate policy.
Without technofix their industrial regime would be unthinkable in this over-populated island of limited and shrinking reserves of energy and resources. But this is no justification for technofix. Sooner or later we shall reach the breaking point, where the technofix will no longer work - and then it will be too late. Rick Davis is the editor of the Japan Environment Newsletter . The public is easy to convince because it wants to be convinced, and the Japanese are enraptured by the possibilities of technofix because of their abiding faith in science and technology.