Techno-optimism and climate change
“Technological solutions are often politically attractive because they promise to address climate change without requiring changes to how people live and consume, says Dr Fabian Dablander from the Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science and the Global School of Sustainability at LSE. He is the lead author of a report claiming that scientists who believe technology will largely solve the problems caused by climate change are 23% less likely to engage in civic climate action and 18% less likely to make high impact lifestyle changes, compared to scientists who disagree with this belief.
The authors raise concerns about reliance on technological solutions in the report, where they state: “The belief that technology will largely solve climate change and its consequences, what we refer to as techno-optimism, can lead to an over reliance on technological solutions at the expense of far-reaching socio-economic transformations needed to address climate change.”
In the survey, comprising over 9,000 scientists across 115 countries, 27% agree with the statement that ‘technology will largely solve the problems caused by climate change’. In comparison, 44% disagree with the statement (29% neither agree nor disagree).
The survey is published in in Environmental Research Letters.
The report says that scientists who agreed that technology will largely solve the problems caused by climate change (techno-optimists) reported engaging in less civic actions than those who disagreed. They were signing fewer petitions (41% versus 52%), engaging in less protest (17% versus 28%) and engaging in less advocacy (25% versus 33%).
“This group also reported engaging in fewer high-impact lifestyle changes”, LSE says presenting the report.
“Techno-optimistic scientists were less likely to report reducing their flying (43% versus 57%), reducing their car usage (62% versus 74%) or following a mostly vegan or vegetarian diet (31% versus 45%). The differences in technology-oriented climate actions such as switching to an electric vehicle (18% versus 21%) and switching to renewable energy at home (46% versus 47%) were negligible.”
“The researchers also found that techno-optimism is most prevalent among scientists with right leaning political views. The scientists were asked to rate their political leanings on a scale from one (most left leaning) to seven (most right leaning). Only 16% of left-leaning scientists (who identified with one and two on the scale) were techno-optimists compared to 48% of right leaning scientists (who identified with six and seven on the scale)*. LSE reports.
“There was also variation across scientific fields with the percentage of techno-optimists highest in applied (31%) and natural sciences (29%) and lowest in those in the social and behavioural sciences (23%) and humanities (23%).”
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