Kind of a cool story, and as someone whose generally a conservationist and stoic, I admire the guy. But he does miss quite a big point with this:

> If we grew our own food, we wouldn't waste a third of it as we do today. If we made our own tables and chairs, we wouldn't throw them out the moment we changed the interior decor. If we had to clean our own drinking water, we wouldn't waste it so freely.

We also wouldn't have time to do things like cure malaria, build fortifications against natural disasters, and share information across great distances.

If you were born 100 years ago in 1909, you'd expect to die in 1961. Current life expectancy is 78 years, and there's a good chance babies born in 2009 will average living to 2109. That's frigging marvelous, despite wasting some food and furniture.