If you have 20 minutes to spare, I strongly urge you to watch this video. http://www.storyofstuff.com/
Tomorrow is my birthday, so you should watch it and pass it on as an early birthday present to me.

It's another example of how I think there's really only one problem in the world, but there's room for hundreds of solutions. We can't balance good and evil, because nature itself doesn't believe in balance. What we need are systems that renew themselves through reinforcing cycles.