What is the World? Who are We? What Are We Going to Do about It?
Speaking of Creation encourages humility, reminding us of humans’ relatively small, albeit disproportionately destructive, place in that larger world.
ecomodernism
Of Boomers and Doomers
…I’ve been struck anew recently…about the nature of techno-utopianism, and the difficulty we seem to have nowadays in breaking out of a boomer-doomer dualism…
Ecotheology, Limits, and Freedom
Pope Francis’s critique of the technocratic paradigm in his Encyclical Letter, On Care for our Common Home, might also be thought of as a critique of a morality of limitlessness, with the goal of articulating morally binding limits for human conduct.
A critique of Leigh Phillips’ assertion of the Tech-Fix Ecomodernist faith
“Ecomodernism” assumes that by accelerating modern technologies economic growth can continue and high living standards can be achieved for all, while resource and ecological problems are solved.
Retro-modernism
… I’d argue that ecomodernism is retro-modernism – less alive, less open to the changes and possibilities in the world, less modern, than the localism and the ‘folk politics’ that it derides…
Let’s Define Degrowth before we Dismiss it
The reluctance of degrowth-critics to define growth makes for poor debate.
The Closed World and the Infinite Universe: The Metaphysics of Freedom
For the sun has long since set and the Owl of Minerva has not yet taken flight. It may be time to admit that we cannot simply choose to live the way we want to.
Magical Mathematics
I know that some readers of this blog get bored by my engagements with the ecomodernists, whereas others find them interesting. So I’m going to try to keep everyone happy.
Promethean Porn and Malthusian Mistakes: a letter to Leigh Phillips
My own Promethean ambition is for us to embrace our techne, our human skills, and use them to live with humility and wisdom alongside others on our planet.
The Persistence of the Peasantry: Further Notes on the Inverse Productivity Relationship
This post strikes to the heart of what Small Farm Future is all about, and raises some interesting agricultural issues – the fact that it also engages with the ecomodernism debate is almost incidental, really.
On the Iconography of my Scythe
"There is an empiricist argument against the proposition that the peasantry is doomed, namely that after all these years they just won’t go away."
Ecomodernism: a Response to my Critics
George Monbiot, bless him, has recently been tweeting his enthusiasm for my critique of the Ecomodernist Manifesto (‘Dark thoughts on Ecomodernism‘)