Social conscious Vs a consumer centric world.

How does one balance between the good of the planet and the need to earn a living in an ever increasing wired, or unwired as the case may be world. I'm living in the centre of middle classness at the moment, we drink organic free trade coffee, we buy organic veggies as much as possible, our washing products are all eco-friendly, our toilet paper is recycled, not one would assume from old toilet paper but still, we recycle, use low power bulbs and part of our energy bill is green.
We worry about global warming and whether we are on the happy or unhappy side of the climate tipping point. Is the planet screwed or just a bit buggerd. Is all the organic recycled low power goodness a waste of time because in the next 5 minutes, 2 months, 6 years Israel, Iran or the United States will get their tits in a tangle because someone said they were facists, hate mongers or reglious idiots and spit their nuclear dummy all over the rest of us and our organic coffee.
If we ignore the fact that a bunch of idiots could and probably will bugger up all our hard work, where do we stop, where do we find a level of balance and a sane source of information to help find that balance.
How do I lower my impact on the planet without jepordizing my standard of living and my work? I'm not about to go live in a mud hut and eat beetles, nor am I about to unplug my laptop
and stop buying consumer electronics ( okay just apple really ).
And there we have it, after a huge ramble, the point of this post - How as a geek to I balance my desire to not single handly be responsible for raping the planet, while staying relavent in my field.
Would an ebook reader be better for the planet than the 100 kgs of technical books I read ~100 pages from, or would it have to last me 15 years - something we know isn't going to happen. While the greens will say no tech is a good level of tech, that doesn't really cut it, I'm pretty sure that my Macbook Pro is more eco-friendly that some sub 1000 dollar laptop that I could have brought.  Not least of all, this is still a powerful machine year after I brought it and in a year or two when I get rid of it, it will serve someone else for a few more years, much like my old Powerbook which is happily meeting Mums needs for about 15 months now.
I guess the question I am asking is "When should I curb my desire/need for technology and when doesn't it make a difference?", it's not like I'm buying every device under the sun and there are practical as well as ecological benefits from curbing spending, such as having money.

Greenpeace shit me, they are a huge marketing machine that don't let truth or fact get in the way of a good press release - see the last stories on apple products, that were widly inacturate - not quite the vim and vigore to get a correction to the PR. Hence fools, possibly well meaning, but fools non the less.