Not sure why I did that.  Most of it will be obsolete soon.  

If I understand you rightly, I have to agree:  Financial Capitalism has moved us into an era of economic degeneration--"looting" is the word I usually use--as formerly productive infrastructure is liquidated, in which solutions to our environmental and economic problems can not be implemented, even if solutions exist.  

The earlier era of Industrial Capitalism was indeed productive, and technically competent, although it had other faults.  

Can we get those two virtues back?  

I think not, because it was just the web of interconnectivity of technical competence in the service of production that the era of finance Capitalism has so effectively destroyed.  We still have science, but it is science for hire--for example, leading edge genetic research is devoted to destroying and thereby monopolizing the human food supply.  It will never do a thing to ameliorate the food famines we will be facing.  

Those who wish to do good, rather than open evil, are like Goddard--in your story--not von Braun.  

But Industrial Capitalism met its end for a reason, and that reason goes back to the 1970s, with the decision in 1980.  Reason?  Just this:  Industrial Capitalism was based on ever-rising energy use, and by 1980 it was clear that that trend would end.  

That meant Industrial Capitalism must end.  

The alternatives?  1)  Find a way for the economy to reward--"incentivize," as they like to say--efficiency of resource use and de-consumption, or  2) loot it all out in a final binge.  

Hate to say it, we did not choose option # 1.  

So now some of us realize that it was all a mistake, an even bigger mistake than we perhaps knew at the time, and we want to change the choice.  

It can't be done.  

What can be done?  I am not sure.  Two things go immediately together:  Wake up people if you can, and start thinking about food--gardening, community gardening, community supported organic agriculture, and the like.  Food comes before everything else, and food is going to be a problem.  

What about the grid?  What about water?  These things are going to be problems as well, but I am not yet seeing answers.  The main difficulty in thinking about these things is that too much of our existing infrastructure depends on tecnologies that have already been or are being gutted--that are already beyond us, and lie in the past.  What will actually be available as technical tools for solving problems?  Less than we think, is the only sure answer.  

Strategically, I think creating small groups that can evolve new solutions and recover old knowledge are key.  But solutions will have to be more low tech than high, because the supporting infrastructure is not there.  They will have to be simple and reproducible.  

The Fates are kind.