CLIMATE CHANGE IS A TECHNOLOGICAL CHALLENGE

By Professor Frédéric Fréry, ESCP Business School

 

Even as climate change threatens our prosperity and, in the long-term, global peace, a disastrous trend rooted in ecologism is promoting asceticism and degrowth. We must stop fighting the wrong battle! Rather than stifling scientific ambitions and rejecting all technological solutions, we must mobilize our ingenuity and pursue the solutions that will enable us to overcome this formidable obstacle.

In 1969, in one of the most astounding technological feats in human history, the United States succeeded in sending men to the Moon, less than seven years after John Fitzgerald Kennedy announced this ambition. Now humanity is facing an even more extraordinary technological challenge: that of climate change, which is threatening our habitat, food, prosperity and, in the long-term, global peace. In order to respond to this daunting challenge, we must mobilize the ingenuity of millions of men and women and massively invest in technological solutions to an even greater extent than JFK’s space race. Yet politicians and the media seem tempted by frugality and degrowth, advocating the precautionary principle and sobriety over mobilization and boldness. However, choosing to back down rather than face the obstacle would mean fighting the wrong battle.

 

Promising technology

Technology can and must be developed to fight the rise in temperatures. The most promising non-greenhouse gas emitting energy sources include geothermal and hydrothermal energy, synthetic fuels, nuclear fission and soon nuclear fusion, as opposed to solar and wind power, which cannot sustain our way of life due to their intermittent nature.

This low-carbon power generation will lead to more virtuous solutions for our needs for transport, habitat and food: electric cars and zero-emission aeroplanes, more environmentally-friendly building materials and energy-efficient housing, protein alternatives to livestock farming. Finally, quantum computing will increase the potential of our artificial intelligence.

All of these technological advances, including those linked to recycling, are crucial in safeguarding our future. However, these innovations will require collective global mobilization.

 

The doom and gloom movement

Rather than seeing these technological advances as solutions, supporters of doom and gloom ecologism see them as part of the problem. The environmentalist collapsology trend is inherently anti-tech: it paints an idealistic view of organic agriculture, rejects advances such as GMOs, and plays on the public’s fears in advocating the closure of nuclear power plants, despite the relativity of the hazards (cigarette smoking is responsible for more deaths in France per month than civil nuclear energy has caused since the 1950s).

Far from being the “blind optimism” or “Promethean dream” that critics depict, a pro-technology approach is a progressive and daring ambition. This political, scientific, and financial momentum is not based on blind trust or technological utopianism from another century. It involves making informed decisions from among the multiple opportunities created by technological progress.

 

Two threatening dystopias

This doom and gloom perspective reflects a lack of faith in humanity, and threatens to paralyze us with fear, causing us to abandon any pursuit of enlightenment, falling instead into modern-day Malthusianism, as witnessed in the GINK (green inclinations, no kids) movement which discourages people from having children to avoid producing more “little polluters.” Ecologism of this nature is not humanist. It negates human creativity, the spirit of adventure, and curiosity. It seeks to use a stern sense of guilt to constrain the momentum that has always driven humanity.

Furthermore, it is hardly realistic to imagine peaceably convincing hundreds of millions of human beings to give up the comfort and prosperity they enjoy or to which they aspire. Sooner or later, there is a danger of this commitment to degrowth moving from conviction to constraint and prompting dictatorship, a temptation inherent in any group convinced it has the monopoly on truth.

The collapse of society is therefore like a self-fulfilling prophecy. It either paralyzes innovation efforts through fear (obscurantist withdrawal), or provokes a populist response to environmental tyranny (widespread Trumpism). In order to avoid these two dystopias, and truly fight climate change, we must not let ecologism gain the monopoly.

 

The case for capitalist ecology

When ecologism condemns technological solutions, it is in reality attacking capitalism. When it denounces the commodification of nature and consumerism, it is in essence declaring that “green” growth is impossible.

Yet this anti-capitalist position has two limits:

  • First of all, environmental damage is not specific to capitalism. We only need to consider one recent example to realize this: the impacts of the Soviet Union.
  • Secondly, refusing capitalism means refusing its number one strength: it is the most tremendous catalyst of human energy in all of history. While the concept is not morally attractive, the lure of individual gain is an extraordinary driver of collective prosperity.

 

In short, rather than fighting capitalism, we must make it our ally. How? By making the protection of biodiversity and the fight against climate change lucrative activities that could attract ambitious entrepreneurs and interested investors. The human energy that will be released in pursuit of a fortune to be made in protecting the environment will be infinitely greater than any response to calls for restraint. Ecology must embrace capitalism’s energy in order to achieve its goals. The story has yet to be written, but we should choose ambition over resignation, energy over contrition, and science over degrowth.

 

Frédéric Fréry is a Professor in the Management Department at ESCP Business School. He teaches on strategy, organization, and innovation management. He has authored numerous books and articles, speaks at conferences, and is a columnist in the financial press. His research focuses on strategic innovation.

 

This article was originally written as part of the ESCP Business School’s “Better Business: Creating Sustainable Value” series. https://escp.eu/faculty-research/erim/Impact-Papers/Better-Business-Creating-Sustainable-Value

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