Climate Tech?

costs more than three times the cost of wind power. For this there is simply not enough government funding. Alternatively, if we are to try to use more renewable energy sources, there can be no overlooking the problem of the British climate itself. There are very few days in the year in Britain when I feel assured solar power could ever be a reliable resource and despite fierce winds along the coastline, and in many parts of the North of England, funding and the actual construction of renewable technologies is not easy to come by. Additionally, I believe that domestic solar panels create an energy divide in an already economically-divided Britain: when wealthy, middle – and upper –class households can afford solar panels which offer power at a cheaper cost in the long-term, it forces working-class and poorer households to continue paying extortionate energy rates because we cannot afford the initial bulk cost of solar technology installation. If the government wants to offer this as a long-term domestic solution, massive funding has to be introduced.

keep their crops healthy amongst rising temperatures and loss of land due to wildfires and flooding, mass irrigation and hydroponics are increasingly necessary. Irrigation, however, is difficult in hot countries with an existing water supply, especially those that are prone to severe drought. Hydroponics, the science of growing crops in water or mineral solution without soil, is incredibly expensive.

Climate change since the 1970s has increasingly become more and more important as global emissions rapidly rise which threatens to doom our natural environment. In 1972 a movement emerged on the global level through a paper titled “Limits to Growth” . This paper argued that we cannot continue to recklessly pursue economic growth at the cost of our planet, this in turn started to inspire the first generation of thinkers who argued for more responsible economic growth.

This is the origin of the

Since the creation of a capitalist ideology in the book “The wealth of nations” by Adam Smith, the main focus of our economic policy has been profit. Despite capitalism undergoing many variations including Keynesianism, Neoliberalism and industrial capitalism, the core focus of these variations is to drive up profits for the business owners. This has made growing sustainably impossible under a capitalist system, when the sole focus of business owners is profit, they will always seek out methods to lower costs and cut corners in order to get ahead in technological

Looking abroad, the technology required for crop demand as the global population rockets goes well beyond the current availability. As farmers try to developments.

The best examples to illustrate this are energy and transnational corporations – one of the main ways to slash energy costs and climate emissions is to switch our energy usage from coal, gas and oil to more environmentally friendly sources like nuclear power and renewables (wind power and solar power being the most popular). However, through significant lobbying, greenwashing, lying and scheming, international energy companies have managed to convince major global governments that a gradual transition using ‘greener’ natural gas will allow us to ‘sustainably’ transition off fossil fuels.

This illusion gets thrown off quickly when profits start flowing into the executive boards’ pockets, as we saw this year with record profits for companies like BP and Shell. This in turn has led to these companies immediately rolling back climate targets once they see they are not profitable. These practices if they continue to be overlooked on the international, national and regional levels will eventually drive our planet and society to extinction. In order to advance our standard of living sustainably I would argue we need to reevaluate our relationship with both our natural environment and what we seek out of our work and economy. repeating this cyclical process I would argue by allowing workers democracy in industry (both public and private) we would vastly reduce the exploitative and competitive nature present in a neoliberal market economy, this in turn could see the implementation of a planned economy where goods, services and labour can be distributed fairly and equally without the need to increase our exploitation of vulnerable natural environments like the amazon rainforest or the oceans.

Arguably the solution posed most frequently is the one I view to be most dangerous: nuclear fusion. Nuclear fusion is a process which relies on the reaction caused when hydrogen atoms are heated and release neutron energy. This neutron energy is used to heat water and power other industrial processes as a form of – supposedly – renewable energy. The danger lies therein: this complicated and seemingly impenetrable scientific practice uses nuclear energy, which is nothing short of catastrophic when it fails. From radiation damage to nuclear waste, this is a climate technology which I find terrifying and I can only hope that international leaders do not choose this as their one major solution.

Moving forwards, I believe the focus has to be on immediate, safe and reliable practices rather than huge technology because the international discrepancies on finance, funding, and weather do not facilitate a one-size-fits-all solution. From different access, different climates, resources and even individual pathogens within certain ecosystems, large-scale technology is, [in my opinion] not the answer. Since the establishment of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 1992, the UN has encouraged western countries in particular to share their climate technologies, but there is a significant disadvantage which stubbornly remains for most poorer countries. As I see it, climate technologies continue to widen the international economic divide. The arguments in favour of them are not convincing enough to disregard the damaging cost and waste they overwhelmingly produce and, three months into 2023, time is running out to find a reliable long-term strategy. Ultimately, investing in these technologies is a dangerous gamble. By the time advanced climate technology is widely available and in operation, it will likely be too late.

Firstly, our natural world is not something that solely exists for human exploitation. Unrestricted market capitalism is leading to what Marxist philosophers like Karl Marx refer to as a crisis of overproduction. Because of the competitive nature of capitalism, companies will always seek to outproduce and undercut their rivals which in turn requires expansion into new markets as well as the extraction of more raw materials to fuel production. This is highlighted well in Kohei Saito’s book “Marx in the Anthropocene”. Instead of

The benefits of a planned economy do not stop there, not only would it shift the focus away from a continual drive for profit which is killing our planet, but simultaneously bring sustainable decision making closer to both workers and consumers by giving them more control over what is being produced and distributed. Therefore, rather than overproducing and wasting precious natural resources at our planet's expense, a shift away from neoliberal economic practices would provide our communities a chance to drive for sustainability and sustainable economic growth in harmony with our planet rather than at its expense.