I have just listened to a great podcast on 'Opportunity in the Failure of Design' by a guy called William McDonough. He is the co-author of a book called Cradle to cradle. I'm glad there are people like him out there to offer solutions to fix the mess the rest of us are making of the world!
Have a listen at http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=2073 and watch out for the piece about trees.