This chapter will very briefly describe some of the world’s most pressing problems and argue that these can only be solved by eliciting a wave of innovation among new generations. Innovation is not simply required to tackle these specific problems one by one – it is required for an ethical culture capable of generating innovative solutions. I shall examine the character of innovative persons and pedagogies as described in this research and ask if we can afford to do without these. Is the teaching of innovation a form of moral teaching? Is the innovative society the good society?

But let us first deal with the pressing problems confronting us. We may have seriously altered our climate through industrial pollution, a possibility that could test our ingenuity to its limits. The rise of India and China threatens to send the price of many commodities skyhigh. Were emerging countries to imitate the energy usage of the USA then their far denser populations would not have enough breathable air or clean water to survive. Their energy saving must be much more elaborate just to avoid catastrophe. We currently drive cars so large and heavy that 80 per cent of the energy is used in moving the vehicle itself and only 20 per cent is expended on moving its occupants. In turn, this necessitates millions of tons of heat-reflecting tarmac. One consequence of our addiction is that oil supplies are so scarce that we have started to fight over these, a process that drives up the price, since oil comes from some of the world’s most unstable regions. Speculation is rife. So desperate are various nations to secure the scarce resources necessary for industrial development that some of the most despicable regimes in the world are propped up by their energy customers, who collude in widespread persecution and oppression. ‘Black gold’ makes ruthless rivals of us all.