Environmentalists on the Cusp of a Paradigm Shift?

MIT's Technology Review has up an interesting article with some predictions that the modern environmental movement is on the tipping point. It posits that we will soon see modern environmentalists doing an abrupt about-face on: nuclear power, geneticall modified foods, urbanization, and population growth. Those who have spent any time talking to (which usually means "being lectured by") a serious environmentalist know that their zeal often surpasses that of most religious zealots.

Reversals of this sort have occurred before. Wildfire went from universal menace in mid-20th century to honored natural force and forestry tool now, from “Only you can prevent forest fires!” to let-burn policies and prescribed fires for understory management. The structure of such reversals reveals a hidden strength in the environmental movement and explains why it is likely to keep on growing in influence from decade to decade and perhaps century to century...The environmentalist aesthetic is to love villages and despise cities. My mind got changed on the subject a few years ago by an Indian acquaintance who told me that in Indian villages the women obeyed their husbands and family elders, pounded grain, and sang.  But, the acquaintance explained, when Indian women immigrated to cities, they got jobs, started businesses, and demanded their children be educated. They became more independent, as they became less fundamentalist in their religious beliefs. Urbanization is the most massive and sudden shift of humanity in its history. Environmentalists will be rewarded if they welcome it and get out in front of it. In every single region in the world, including the U.S., small towns and rural areas are emptying out. The trees and wildlife are returning. Now is the time to put in place permanent protection for those rural environments.

Is it possible that the environmental movement is ready to admit they were wrong on these topics? Not likely, frankly. Nuclear power is hanted by the Darth Vader-esque image of the mushroom cloud. GM organisms are haunted by Frankenstein. Urbanization is seen thru the smoggy lens of the old L.A. Skyline. And population growth is not so much about sustainable human living, as it is a way to protest the existence of humans at all. The romantics still rule the environmental movement, and they are not turned around by the scientists in their midst, but by massive propogada flicks like The Day After Tomorrow.