The question was to analyze the world view that Homer-Dixon was using when he claims that humans are creating environmental problems faster than we are solving them.

How might the problem be posed differently from other world views?

What can you learn from this comparison?

Homer-Dixon's claim is a good example of a egalitarian world view. "If we don't know what we are really doing, we shouldn't do it" argument comes under the strong precautionary principle.

Other world views - might say:

Individualist - if humans created the problem they can solve it (I've seen this claim attributed to "earth systems engineers".)

Hierarchist - better policies and regulations need to accompany the innovations (I've seen this claim made by people who want to "export" legal and governmental systems of regulation along with the technology to meet pollution standards.)

Fatalist - There are so many ways to destroy the world that it's not suprising that any activity, innovative or not, leads to degradation. In fact you should be pleasantly surprised if anything works. (This claim is called the "Anna Karenina Principle" and comes from the book's first line about happy families- and has been stretched to mean that there are ways to be successful but many ways to mess it up.)

 

The comparison of world views should show that a single author's claim, although it sounds very reasonable and useful to consider, may be controvesial based on basic assumptions about how the world works.