Gray World, Green Heart

In Gray World, Green Heart, Robert Thayer identifies three conflicting forces - topophilia (love of land and nature), technophilia (affection for and dependence upon technology), and technophobia (fear of the negative side-effects of technology) - which he believes are at the heart of the current environmental crisis. These forces, he contends, coexist yet often compete within each of us, giving rise to "an oppressive sense of connection between our lifestyles, the immediate surroundings in which we live, play, and work, and the environmental and social problems looming in the...world at large." Paradoxically, according to Thayer, we compound the problem, appeasing our guilty consciences by hiding air conditioners behind redwood fences and using consumptive technologies to build fake waterfalls, volcanoes, and other superficial simulations of nature.