More technology means more waste. Occasionally, some new technologies result in less waste for that product, which simply results in even more consumption and more total waste.

The results are clear: with the single exception of CFCs, there’s no major waste product that humans have ever generated that hasn’t increased at an exponential rate over time.

We cannot consume our way out of the problem of “too much consumption”.

I wish it weren’t so. I am a technologist myself. I expected decades ago we’d do something about these issues, but instead we spend our intelligence advertising to people over the internet to buy more consumer goods.

We should have started to deal with these issues about forty years ago. Even twenty years ago we might have had a chance. But it’s today, and we still aren’t dealing with the issues.