The trap of conventions

I've recently been reading Michael Maniates' analysis - Individualization: Plant a tree, ride a bike, save the world - in which he illustrates very well how we are trapped in our thinking into doing what is familiar rather than engaging meaningfully with our ability to do things differently, which could mean fairly radical social change. He talks about it partly in terms of limiting our collective imagination. The need for this 'second-order' change - doing things differently - rather than 'first order', i.e. change that amounts to doing more of the same, came up again in reading George Monbiot's posting on the proposed coal-fired replacement of Kingsnorth power station. Monbiot explains that whether we prevent runaway climate change hinges largely on us stopping using this most carbon-intensive fossil fuel and that there are a lot of issues of practicality and cost around 'cleaner coal'. I was struck by the phrase from the power plant's proposer E.on in alleged correspondence with a civil servant that " the government has no right to withhold approval for a conventional plant”. Aaagh! In this day and age how can such an argument hold? In this context ....conventional, traditional or familiar...doesn't necessarily mean good!