Techno-Optimism Is Climate Denial

• In Event: Political Theory without the Bannister of Progress

Abstract

Despite ever-more-dire climate reports and predictions techno-optimists, eco-capitalists, and climate optimists urge people to believe climate change is a problem to be solved by corporate ingenuity, technological innovation, and billionaire philanthropy. Techno-optimists cling desperately to the narrative of progress, as a lifeboat and a panacea. Progress, I contend, is neither. Climate change is a profound manifestation of the breakdown in the logic of progress, and for this reason, it is increasingly a dead narrative. Among those who mobilize the rhetoric of progress, are the Techno-Optimist Manifesto (and corresponding neo-utilitarian philosophical movements, Effective Altruism, and Longtermism) and the Climate Optimist. The latter delivers a bombastic and persuasive argument that if humanity “believes” we can solve climate change, then humanity can will solutions into being. The Climate Optimist, Anne Therese Gennari, offers a position that parallels the best-selling, self-help book, The Secret, which asserted that one could use the powers of positive thinking and manifestation to solve personal problems. This logic breaks down when faced with intractable problems, whether on an individual or a global scale. One cannot manifest their way out of breast cancer any more than one can manifest their way out of the climate crisis. Beyond concerns about the more delusional aspect of this approach, climate optimism yields to the position taken by Silicone Valley, that climate change is a market problem to be resolved by technological innovation. Similarly, and more perniciously, Marc Andreessen’s Techno-Optimist Manifesto argues that “everything good is downstream of growth,” and that while “Natural resource utilization has sharp limits,” technology can overcome these limitations. Andreesen goes on to argue “there is no inherent conflict between the techno-capital machine and the natural environment,” because technology can solve the problem of environmental degradation. Meanwhile, even well-meaning (but naïve?) intellectuals look to leftists for reassurance that things are not as dire as they appear. In an interview with Andreas Malm for the New York Times, David Marchese tells Malm that his “work is crushing” and asks Malm if he could “give [Marchese] a reason to live.” As the effects of climate change become worse by the year, people increasingly crave the type of palliatives proffered by Andreessen and Gennari, which spell disaster for mitigating climate change and sustaining democratic decision-making.
By relying on capitalism, technological breakthroughs, and billionaires to resolve climate change, the climate crisis empowers the very system and people who created the problem in the first place. Furthermore, when democracy yields to experts, the climate crisis threatens to become a crisis for democracy as well. Andreessen appears to prefer using markets and the “techno-capitalist machine” to resolve political conflict, rather than democratic decision-making. While climate optimists, eco-managerialists, and techno-optimists do not (on balance) deny the gravity of climate change, their commitment to the power of capitalism and technological innovation to solve climate change is nearly as delusional as the misinformation proffered by climate change deniers. This paper advances the argument that techno-optimism and climate optimism are similarly problematic to climate denial as they rely on misinformation, denial (of the severity of the problem or of the problematic nature of solutions), and a miscalculation of the risks associated with geoengineering and nuclear power. To develop my argument, this paper builds on my theory of ecopessimism to offer a critique and a ballast to the delusional imperatives proffered by those who defend optimism and the narrative of progress (e.g., Andreesen, William MacAskill, Stephen Pinker, and Bjorn Lomborg).

Author

• Mary Witlacil, South Dakota School of Mines and Technology