IT'S WORTH reminding ourselves that Vulcan, the Roman god of fire and metalworking, was the only physically imperfect immortal.
This god of technology walked with a limp. Some legends say he was born with a bad leg; others say he injured it (maybe from kicking himself for marrying the beautiful and seductive, but unfaithful, Venus).
Technology to this day is like that happy couple -- alluring, promising much, appearing almost godlike in its ability to solve problems painlessly.
We can't do without it. But don't ever forget the limp, or expect it will always be true to your desires.
Last week I was driving on Interstate 97, taking a call on the cell phone (great technology if it doesn't get me killed in a car crash). The caller spun a compelling tale of how cars of the future could virtually eliminate the vehicular air pollution that is a major source of Chesapeake Bay problems.
Indeed, she noted, cars are on the market now that can cut key bay pollutants by 90 percent. About that moment, a hunky new Hummer H2 steamed by, large enough to haul troops into battle -- except it looked to be carrying one small woman to Arundel Mills mall.
On the cell phone was technology's 50-miles-per-gallon promise. Passing me by was 12-mpg reality -- the reason average new-car mileage fell again this year, slipping below what it was 20 years ago; the reason cleaning up the bay will be harder than it should.
It's merely the tip of the iceberg of our faith in technology to solve our environmental problems. Just because we can do it doesn't mean we will.
There has never been an age, for example, when we knew more about nutrition and health, about the benefits of exercise and the training of superior athletes.
But you cannot go a week in America without reading another story on the national trend toward more obese children and young adults.
Environmentally, we have the technologies today to grow our food with far less pollution, to use far less energy and produce far less air pollution; to develop land with far less impact on nearby streams and rivers, to conserve water instead of flooding wetlands so we can build new drinking reservoirs.
But for a number of reasons, we're choosing not to use them. Sometimes it's more expensive; other times it's just different. Sometimes we've not been educated properly. Sometimes there's lots of money in maintaining the status quo. Sometimes we just don't wanna.
The bottom line is that those who take comfort in technology to protect the environment had better take a hard look at its lame record.
That is not to say we shouldn't place a good deal of faith in disciples of Vulcan. Technology not even imagined a couple of decades ago has allowed major improvements in sewage treatment around the bay -- and at less cost than the old technology.
Furthermore, even as the bay watershed's population continues to grow by a million people a decade, every likelihood exists that even better sewage treatment technology will produce more clean-water gains in coming years.
The trick with sewage treatment is that the technology is backed by federal and state clean-water laws, dedicated funding and bay restoration programs with goals and deadlines.
Unsupported by such measures, the existence or promise of technological solutions doesn't mean much. Even worse, it might become an excuse for not doing things that will work.
And what works?
Bans and moratoriums have a good record. The last huge leap in sewage-treatment cleanup on the bay came in the 1980s, when we banned phosphate detergents.
Detergent industry lobbyists back then warned Maryland legislators they would see an exodus of families from the state as housewives rebelled at a life of eternally gray, dirty laundry. Somehow we've survived.
A ban on catching rockfish in the bay did wonders to replenish the species' numbers along the East Coast. Technology, in the form of rockfish hatcheries, played a key role, but mostly for education and research. Giving nature breathing room was what brought the fish back.
But I wouldn't advocate depending on bans any more than I'd advocate blind allegiance to technology.
Where we've had success in protecting the bay, it's come from these factors: good science; public education as to the problem and its solution; adequate money; and strong, enforceable goals -- or at least the threat of enforcement. Once that's all in place, technology can sure help.
Even with all the support in the world, however, technology's still lame. If we don't stop adding millions of people, sprawling across the landscape, pushing consumption of natural resources to Hummer levels, the best tools imaginable won't suffice to protect our environment.
What's the solution? Only the hardest task of all -- retooling ourselves, the ways we think and act, recognizing that there are limits on our use of this place.