I find your essay a true revelation. I never looked at the problems of nowadays in that perspective. It is an incredible interesting essay which is very well written.

This is truly inspiring work. We should look beyond static ideals and start to recognise where the bottlenecks of tomorrow are. It is time for pragmatic scenario's like yours, because 'times like these ask for pragmatism in favor of idealism'.

I think that you make an interesting point of focusing on pragmatic solution , especially as a reaction to the unsophisticated idealistic tendencies often found in present day popular debate on environmental problems. However I do think that by not giving content to concepts like 'development' and 'human well-being' we run into the risk of equating those concepts solely with economic development and economic welfare. So although I agree with you that pragmatism should be the key word, critical and ongoing reflection of essential concepts is needed in order to determine what the bottlenecks are and what kind of pragmatic actions is needed to overcome those. Pragmatism without any content can hardly be seen as a solution.

Thoughtfull and well-written essay! As a member of an older generation I must admit that we were (and are) very easily impressed by technical solutions for social problems. Generations of engineers have been working on renewable energy techniques, and still we made only limited progress. So it is a refreshing idea to concentrate on the (mainly social) obstacles that hinder further progress, and tackle them first.Perhaps we need more pragmatism in this field!