Some readers of this dissertation might find it counter-intuitive to suggest that detoxification is a primary tendency of postindustrial development. They might find elements of decentralization and dematerialization in the mainstream economy, but very little detoxification. Nevertheless, while the potential for detoxification does clearly run against the status quo, it is possible to see the shadow of this potential in certain key areas. The most apparent is in what energy analysts call the decarbonisation of energy systems. That is, over the last 150 years, economic development has gradually substituted cleaner forms of energy for dirtier onesfrom charcoal to coal to oil to natural gas, and now hopefully to renewables and soft energy systems. The rise of oil and the oil-based chemical industry has introduced vast numbers of toxic chemicals into daily use, but in the last decade increasing numbers of more benign plant-based materials have become cost-competitive with petrochemical substances. They are part of a rising Carbohydrate Economy of bio-based materials that are far more benign than petrochemicals. It is the material expression of what we see more clearly in energy: a growing potential to shift back to renewable resources made possible by growing scientific and ecological knowledge (Morris & Ahmed, 1993). While this transition is not inevitable, neither is our survival as a species. But it is the logical thrust of technological and economic development, and absolutely necessary to establish sustainable economies.