New technology lets you grow the resource pie, which is the only way you can get out between that pincer of rising consumption (as we end poverty) and environmental and natural resource depletion.

Unfortunately, in the environment, I don't see as much willingness to invest heavily in R&D as I do in consumer technology. And that's a pity.

Ozone and climate are global issues, and it's hard to find a way in which the benefits of shutting down carbon emissions are going to pay for themselves for any given power-plant, say.

On almost every environmental issue I care about, in fact, I've been wrong at one point or another. I used to think that climate change was no big deal, that most environmental problems were massive exaggerations, that oil reserves were effectively unlimited, and more.

If you want to feed the planet and keep the forests we have, you need to be able to grow roughly twice as much food per acre around the world. How do you do that? New technology.

That, to me, is a kind of brilliant environmental ju-jitsu - using the energy of the market and the profit-motive to get businesses to invest in preserving and improving natural systems.

When it comes to trying to manage how our entire planet-wide market and all the people and businesses in it deal with nature and our natural resources - we first and foremost need to change the incentives.