Cradle to Cradle
I'm not sure I would consider Cradle to Cradle visionary, a lot of it is things that the hippies in Northern California have been thinking about for the last few decades.
Changing the way we design things vs trying to change the general population however is probably our only answer in trying to save this little place we call home. People are selfish by nature and won't change unless they are given a motive (usually in the US, its financial).
Major corporates hold the power here, just like everywhere else. They have the technology available to them to make sustainable products, they have the ability to completely shift consumer demands with the right celebrity endorsements or they have the ability to keep doing what they're doing.
The book also list five steps which basically could of just been listed and saved me from reading the rest of it:
1) elemenate toxins in goods and services
2) make informed decisions (money talks)
3) Do detailed analysis of any product
4) Design around the positive of a product
5) Reinvent constantly, go back and change, update and change all the time.
I think in the big picture, complex problems defy simple solutions. The world can't be cleaned up if everyone sells their cars and start walking. We need to commit to a total 'big picture' solution for our problems. We needs to remember though, that almost all solutions will hurt someone too. What or who we hurt and who or what we fix I think is the hardest part of the problem to solve.