There's a well known correlation between economic progress and ecological protection. The wealthier a community, the better it can make good long term decisions

There's a well known correlation between economic progress and ecological protection. The wealthier a community, the better it can make good long term decisions about maintaining the ecosystems around it. When people are struggling, they use whatever they can to survive. They'll burn wood indoors, and strip the wooded areas of all trees, use up as much groundwater through wells as possible, and so on... Get rid of the do-or-die hard scrabble for survival and people can start being better stewards. It's the largely invisible, widespread, and long term effects, like leaded gas and co2 impacts on climate that require nation state intervention through science based policy. For highly empowering things like this, the upshot is likely that even though the tech is not likely to be as clean and efficient as we'd want, it will enable individuals and communities to thrive and better their lives to the point that they can start affording long term ecological preservation.