This question is spot on. We have this planet, our habitat, in our hands. Overexploition of natural recources can bring our ecosystem in dire straits, and us with it. We can loose so much. About time to use technology to change this. And about time to change out behaviour en masse.
There are many startup endeavours that aim to use tech for the better of our ecosystem e.g. all the startups affiliated with the New Harvest Community (http://new-harvest.org).
>> bleeding edge
It also doesn't fix any of the fundamental problems.
Maybe a sign of (rather unintelligent) industrialized life on other planets would be sulfate aerosol spectra in the atmosphere too consistent to be explained by vulcanism...