Don’t count on technology to save us from climate breakdown. Technology’s end result is always growth, which results in more consumption. This week’s post is recommending two things: (1) read the article by Andrew Nikiforuk in The Tyee (and repeated in Countercurrents), and, more importantly (2) think about what you’ve read and try to integrate the results of those thoughts into your actions.
The purpose of new technologies is both simple and plain: to make money for the owner or proponent of that technology. Doing good or fighting climate disruption may be the reason given, but profits are the only driver. A few quotes from the article follow. Be sure to go read the whole thing!
The article uses the slaughter of literally millions of whales, when oil product substitutes were available, to illustrate his points. Thus the whale images.
“[Richard] York has checked the evidence and it strongly suggests that market economies aren’t using solar, wind or geothermal to retire oil, gas or coal, but to boost overall energy consumption.”
“And that tale of unintended consequences is already haunting renewable energy sources, adds York.
York has checked the evidence and it strongly suggests that market economies aren’t using solar, wind or geothermal to retire oil, gas or coal, but to boost overall energy consumption.”
“York deftly summarizes the issue. “Technologies are typically deployed to increase profits, not to conserve resources,” he writes. “Producers work to create markets and expand consumption of their products so as to further the accumulation of wealth.””
“The industrial whale business tells us, for example, that human economies don’t respond to the depletion of any commodity with alacrity. Or reason.”
“Just because a substitute exists — kerosene for whale oil or renewables for some fossil fuels — doesn’t mean the market will use them for conservation purposes.”
“Technological fixes have their limitations and can’t be relied on to solve serious environmental problems.”
“The widespread expectation that new technologies will help societies overcome environmental problems reflects the still common assumption that technologies will principally have the consequences intended by those who develop and/or deploy them.”
“Real change, he writes, “may require active suppression of fossil fuel use, such as by restricting the amount of fossil fuel that can be extracted.”
Read the whole article, it’s well worth it, in The Tyee (and repeated in Countercurrents)
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