Hope for the environment + humanity

I downloaded an episode of the Colbert Report from October 30. The guest, America biologist and business man Craig Venter, explained that he and his team of scientists can create life forms that generate energy, clean water, and food. Here is a quote from Venter's Wikipeida entry:

In a recent interview with New Scientist when asked 'Assuming you can make synthetic bacteria, what will you do with them?' Venter replied

'Over the next 20 years, synthetic genomics is going to become the standard for making anything. The chemical industry will depend on it. Hopefully, a large part of the energy industry will depend on it. We really need to find an alternative to taking carbon out of the ground, burning it, and putting it into the atmosphere. That is the single biggest contribution I could make.'

Furthermore it suggests that one of the main purposes for creating synthetic bacteria would be to reduce the dependence on fossil fuels. (Source: New Scientist Issue 2626 Pg 57.)

Pretty good, eh?