Groucho
The time for waking up was perhaps twenty years ago.
Yes.
This is from a long article I wrote for the group 'Students for Alternatives to Genetic Engineering' in about 1996, for the Home page of the website we created back then. The article was about GMOs but also had a section called "More Pollution" and touched on the dangers.
"Scientific advancement is a powerful tool with many benefits, however, science shows us that the more powerful a technology is, the more caution needs to be exercised in its usage...
The 20th century provides ample evidence worldwide that the current education system is seriously lacking something fundamental and universal. The serious problems facing humanity today are the result of partial knowledge, and fragmented development in education. Thus, scientists have repeatedly created technologies which are detrimental to health and the environment, and society has administered their destructive force indiscriminately. Genetic engineering is another in the list of dangerous technologies that result from the ongoing tradition of partial knowledge in our educational institutions." -- S.A.G.E. website 1996.
(SAGE website was followed by journalists and others, because we updated with most recent scientific research very effectively every week or so, some of those journalists got the US National Award for Ethical Journalism, and e-mailed me at one point to praise our site, but SAGE is now defunct because no-one listened and we ran out of steam.)
I had letters read out on national UK BBC radio in the 1980s, in which I talked about alternative technology and dangers of nuclear power (that was before Chernobyl and Fukushima.)
I designed kinetic sculptures in the early 1980s that would have used wind and solar power, and some would have followed the sun, moon around the sky, and close up at night etc., and other ways to indicate the symbiotic nature of man and environment. It was too expensive, and I went off on a different artistic track anyway, which from then, until now, has been more like a homage to the nature we are loosing, and a sort of prayer of gratitude in a way, to Earth and the Universe, rather than some of the political/activist messages that may have creeped into my art when I was younger. You can see some of that later art here. I still have tons more to upload yet ---->
http://www.satwagraphics.com/painting1.html I also stood as a candidate for UK MP in the 1990s, for a political party that promoted sustainable living and alternative technology.
I worked on sustainable buildings many times, in fact helped to build aspects of this eco-village in the early 2000s when it was still mostly just a field (started by a good friend of mine.)
Abundance EcoVillage (it is now more advanced than the pictures here, which are old, and the village is bigger now.)
--->
http://www.abundance-ecovillage.com/My friend, Lonnie Gamble, who started the eco-village, then helped with the development of the largest completely off-the-grid building on any university campus in the world, about a mile from Abundance EcoVillage. The building has classrooms, offices, bathrooms, everything, and has zero emissions, with all waste water, etc. re-cycled, purified for plants, washing, and other usages, permaculture and food growing all around it, all construction materials and wood from sustainable sources, and even generates extra electricity for the campus. (The campus has the largest Sustainable Living degree, student body in the world.)
It is the most advanced building in the world --->
Many have moved ahead, to what we call deep ecology now, because nobody listened to us back in the 80s and 90s, in fact we were widely ridiculed, and I doubt they will listen now.
Yes, it is probably too late for the Arctic, and, according to scientists, that will affect the whole world.
The only solutions now are a form of 'deep ecology' that we have been proposing for decades now.