How to Avoid Pitting Nature Against Progress

We cannot dominate nature for much longer, but neither can we retreat from civilization

Clearcutting on Lyell Island in the Queen Charlotte Islands, British Columbia, Canada. Photo:
Joel W. Rogers/Getty Images

It’s tempting to declare war on the institutions and technologies that seek to remake our world in their own image. Radical environmentalists believe that the only way for nature to reassert itself is for human civilization to reduce its…