Those who attend to the limits of reform and system tendencies are often accused of being pessimists.
It is depressing to point out a switch from fossil fuels to solar power includes the growth of
the manufacturing of solar technologies that involves increased mining and creation of toxic byproducts,
or that gains in efficiency of resource use through one technology lead to increases in
overall consumption of a resource. Selznick (1966) after being charged with embracing a “pathos
of pessimism” wrote that