A currently popular attitude is to blame technology or technologists for having brought on the environmental problems we face today, and thus to try to slow technological advance by blocking economic growth. We believe this view to be thoroughly misguided. ① If technology produced automobiles that pollute the air, it is because pollution was not recognized as a problem which engineers had to consider in their designs. ② Solar energy can be a practical alternative energy source for us in the foreseeable future. ③ Obviously, technology that produces pollution is generally cheaper, but now that it has been decided that cleaner cars are wanted, less polluting cars will be produced; cars which scarcely pollute at all could even be made. ④ This last option, however, would require several years and much investment. ⑤ Although technology is responsive to the will of the people, it can seldom respond instantaneously and is never free.