We are asked to marvel at the shiny innovations brought to us by our technological superiors, and while we wait for them to solve climate change for us, we are given strategies to cope with the stress. Climate Change is thus transformed – or perhaps reduced – from a political problem to a technological one. I propose we name these kinds of technologies Technological Antisolutions.
A Technological Antisolution is a product that attempts to replace a boring but solvable political or social problem with a much sexier technological one that won’t work. This does not mean that we should stop doing R&D.
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I propose that for something to be a technological antisolution, it must meet the following 5 criteria:
- It claims to solve a serious social or political problem.
- It is intrinsically incapable of addressing said problem.
- It is profitable under current market conditions.
- It further entrenches existing power structures.
- It is sexy.
I couldn’t read the whole thing because of the pop up that covered my whole mobile phone. But as far as I can tell they made no good case for why burying trees is not a viable solution. Okay, if it’s not net carbon negative or too expensive, then fine. But they didn’t make that case at all from what I saw.
These “biomass burial” technologies make their money by selling carbon credits for the wood that they cut with chainsaws, load onto trucks, haul to pits dug with heavy machinery, and finally bury, thereby absolving polluters of their own emissions.
by buying carbon credits, the world’s largest polluters not only greenwash their brands, but they also become the main benefactors of environmental projects throughout the world. Many conservation projects now rely on the existence of carbon markets for funding, inextricably and perversely linking the supposed solutions to climate change with the perseverance of the status quo.
Burying trees is a non-solution that won’t solve climate change, it’s just a scheme to make money from carbon credits while larping as environmentalists.
Yes I read that part, but they made zero case that the fossil fuels used to cut and bury the trees are more than they sequester. Just complaining about something’s faults does not automatically make it a bad solution. They’d have to actually do some analysis to make that case.
