You Realize, Of Course, That Today's Environmental Movement Would Kill The Computer Revolution

Glenn Reynolds had a link this morning to a deal on a 32GB flash card and reader. Along with the link he did some reminiscing about days gone by. He later updated the post with a reader comment:

"Heck, I remember when punch cards were hi tech. It would take a stack of cards 47 miles high to store 32GB. That’s a lot of trees.”

That is a lot of trees. Which made me realize something:

If computers didn't exist in 2012, would they ever? If an inventor (a latent Charles Babbage, say) came along now and proposed a machine that could do calculations at a heretofore unheard of speed and all that was needed was lots and lots of wood to make punch cards, would environmentalists sit still for it? Would a president as firmly in the pocket of those same environmentalists support it?