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“We need to move our world beyond a dependence on natural resources.” – The Eco-modernist Manifesto
Ecomodernism is an environmental philosophy which argues that humans should strive to protect nature and improve human wellbeing by developing and deploying technologies that decouple human development from environmental impacts. Ecomodernism emphasises that intentional innovation and deployment of environmentally beneficial technologies should be a focus of state policy, and that intensification of human activities can reduce harmful human impacts on the natural world.
Technologies commonly recommended by ecomodernists include precision agriculture, microbial fertilizers, synthetic meat, genetically modified foods (for their reduced usage of herbicides and pesticides), desalination and waste recycling, urbanization, carbon dioxide removal technologies, replacing carbon-intensive (coal, oil, gas) and low power-density energy sources (e.g. firewood in low-income countries, which leads to deforestation) with high power-density sources with lower environmental impacts (e.g. nuclear power plants, renewables). (This summary conveniently provided by Wikipedia)
**Note:** Ecomodernism is _not_ the same as eco-futurism. Eco-futurism speculates about environmental impacts and the destiny of the planet (Levi has a nice post illustrating eco-futurism in Wall-E). Eco-modernism attempts to use technology to improve the environmental and ecological state. Utopian eco-futurism depicts eco-modernism done well. Human extinction is eco-futurist but not eco-modernist.
Eco-modernist Manifesto
What are some examples of eco-modernist approaches that you’ve seen in sci-fi stories?
- What innovation is proposed?
- What environmental problem is the innovation trying to solve or avoid?
- How does human activity actually improve the environmental or ecological situation?
(this is debatable, but I hope I can prove my point) If I had to pick one sci-fi story that gives examples of eco-modernist innovations and ideas, it would be The Wandering Earth. I know how that sounds, it probably doesn’t make much sense but let me explain. The eco-modernist manifesto says that they are trying to save the earth by grouping people together and freeing up land for the enviroment. They also need energy that produces no waste and that can power the world constantly. If you look at The Wandering Earth they are checking those boxes and more. They congregate all the people in cities underground freeing up all the land for the enviroment, they power their cities by Geothermal and Nuclear energy, arguably the greenest energy you could get, and they are saving the earth from obliteration by star. Human activity is improving the enviromental and ecological situation because if humans did not act by moving the earth, then the earthwould no longer exist. You may try and argue that by freezing the surface they killed all of our bio-diversity and harmed the earth, but it is mentioned in the fim that they have copies of every lifeforms genetic structure so as to re-create them. They also mentioned having a storage of seeds as well, but I may be wrong. so to recap, The Wandering Earth is a sci fi story that embodies eco-modernism because all of the people have migrated to cities, they are powered by Geothermal energy and nuclear energy, and they are removing the earth from a situation where if it remained it would be obliterated and no longer exist. Without human intervention, the earth would no longer exsist and as suchthey are both improving the ecological and enviromental situation.
I hope this actually counts, at first the idea popped in my head as a joke but the more I thought about it the more it actually made sense. I mean it ticks every box the eco-modernist manifest speaks about even though its not in the same spirit they meant. Either way feel free to debate or call me out on this matter, because I want to hear what other people think.
That is a great example of eco-modernism. In addition, they used rocks to fuel their Earth Engines. This would solve the problem of trying to find other sources of energy to move Earth. In addition, some of the food that was in the movie seemed to be in a package. So this could reduce waste and people could get most of their nutrients from a package of food. Human activity is reduced in the movie by most of the people living underground and with a limited amount of vehicles used above ground, this would reduce carbon monoxide emissions. According to the UNC.edu, this would “mitigate the amount of climate change” and thus, it would save Earth.
I agree with your interpretation of the Wandering Earth story being an example of giving ecomodernist ideas and innovations because moving the Earth away from inevitable destruction is saving our planet, no matter the measures taken. The land above is used for creating giant engines which will propel the Earth to a new galaxy and is not being used by humans (for the most part) anymore. Instead, they build underground cities, preserve all of our natures seeds and human embryos to recreate a new humanity when they arrive at their new sun. If the people in the Wandering Earth did not take action, the planet would plunge to its inevitable death with all life and resources being wiped out. I also thought that the underground cities were an innovational way for the Earth to not use up land resources. With the giant tsunamis wiping much of the human population out, the underground cities allowed humans to live relatively safe while the forces of nature above raged on (with the planet freezing over) while using green energy like nuclear energy. The Earth is free from humans putting waste onto it everyday and once they reach the new sun, they can put all of Earths creatures back with the seeds as well. My question is though, would it even be possible to recreate all former life that died out and have them prosper and create the same food chain as before? It would be hard to put all the animals back on Earth at a mass rate, but I’d assume they have a plan for that too since they managed to propel Earth out of our Sun’s gravitational pull.
That is a good point Jean-Paul. They probably would not be able to replicate and replace every animal in a food chain. Something that popped into my head though is the idea that this journey of theirs is going to take something like 2400 years if I remember correctly. f they could care less about the time the journey takes, then they probably already know their ecosystem would not be as diverse as it once was. My bet is that they have or are developing a plan that would speed up evolution and changes in these animals so that they can expand the biodiversity when they arrive. Or maybe they are banking on just waiting and watching the population until they change and evolve naturally. That’s just my spin-foil thoughts though.
Anno 2070 is a city building game that takes place after global warming has raised the ocean level. The main part of the game is running a city in a world that needs to be protected. The world is separated not by countries but by how people produce their power. There are three different groups, and one is based on environmental principles. The game puts in place many different abilities to protect the environment. One way to protect the environment is by using different forms of electricity production. You can use geothermal, wind, water, and solar energy in the game to try and prevent further production of greenhouse gasses. Later in the game, you can invest in technologies that pull CO2 out of the atmosphere and filter water pollution. Since you are running this civilization, you are actually able to do more for the environment.
This game is trying to combat climate change to protect the Earth. It focuses on prevention and combating measures to fix the environment.
When the government has say in protecting the environment, it can do a lot. Human activity helps by preventing issues from getting worse in the climate. Humans are essential for this because they are the people in control. They can make the Earth worse, so they can fix it.
Levi, when I first read your blog post, I thought that it aligned more with eco-futurism. I have since changed my mind. I think the game you described would be entertaining to play, and I am glad you chose to use it. I also believe that your game fits the prompt of the forum well, but how does the game display humans? You said that human activity helps prevent issues from getting worse in the climate, but you did not elaborate. Does the game depict a single city that has survived the rising ocean levels? If you could explain a little more, I would enjoy that.
A game featuring eco-modernism is foreign to me, however. Is this game more of a time-wasting game, or is there a plot/ story? I know you said you could invest in technologies that pull CO2 out of the atmosphere and water later in the game, but I am not sure that this means there is a plot.
For some reason, I really want to say that the movie Black Panther. Black Panther is a movie that most of you have probably seen, so I won’t describe it, but I think it loosely fits the criteria. I think I get this idea mostly from watching the video linked. The video and the movie are closely related. Wakanda is the city where everybody lives, and their city is powered mostly by the unnatural metal, Vibranium. Wakanda is set in the modern-day as well. Black Panther does not show specifically how they produce their food, but you have to know that the city is not struggling. This could be because they use a small amount of land inside their barrier effectively, as the video says.
Honestly, I think I am onto something here. I would say that the innovation proposed, even though it is impossible, is the use of Vibranium to cleanly and efficiently power Wakanda. Wakanda’s people rely on this metal to power their city and advance their subculture past the outside world. This answers both of the final two questions.
I could be far off, but I think I am close enough to spark discussion.
The examples from Wandering Earth and Anno2070 are good depictions of salvaging the planet in a post-apocalyptic (or near apocalypse) scenario.
I’m not sure about the Black Panther. It is true that they used vibranium as an artificial means to build most of their civilization (except the all-natural, organic heart shaped herb!) They didn’t do it to preserve the environment necessarily, but avoiding detection by the outside world necessitated minimal and efficient use of natural resources. One could argue that the “Wakandan way” is ancient, O.G. eco-modernist.
Snowpiercer comes to mind.
As an overview, Snowpiercer is about a train carrying the last of humanity through an ice age. The premise is that the ice age was caused by 79 countries who banded together and released a chemical into the air to combat global warming. It worked…too well.
The train is an artificial self-sustaining biosphere, and the rich live much the same as they did before in the first class car. Food is grown hydroponically, waste is recycled, and the train is powered by its own momentum (hey its scifi). The world’s hardiest pests (cockroaches) are ground into gelatinous protein bars to feed the refugees in the back of the train.
In trying to think of an example for this I thought of many eco-futurism examples, but couldn’t think of many eco-modernism. There are plenty of documentaries covering this topic, but they aren’t particularly sci-fi. Then I came to the example in the movie Cloudy with the Chance of Meatballs.
I know this sounds very weird and possibly also a completely different genre. But I think it has some themes in it that fit.
To begin, this movie is set on an island where their main source of food and really their whole island revolves around sardines, the little silver colored fish. The innovation proposed to solve this bland lifestyle of the people on this island was provided by Flint Lockwood, a budding scientist, and inventor. He invents the FLDSMDFR which creates any food you request out of water. This is a miracle at first until it ultimately becomes uncontrollable.
You may ask, so… what does this have to do with ecomodernism. Well, the problem they’re trying to solve was the lack of diversity in food on their island. While not directly related this could be interpreted as a lack of diversity in the ecosystem with many species going on the endangered species list. Who is to say we won’t someday end up with just sardines to eat. They try to fix this by creating a machine to create more diversity. In one way they improve the diversity of the foods they eat but in another way, they create foul weather that plagues the world with giant food. This could relate to the overcompensation of species introduction that sometimes happens in areas of the world when certain species become invasive.
Overall, this movie, in an obscure way, represents the lack of diversity of an ecosystem leading to the healing of one and eventually humans over populating that ecosystem and leading to an invasive species that harms the existing one.
Eat your sardines kiddos.
I love this movie and yes!! Great example! Food-tech is a great example of eco-modernism and one of the big controversies. The unintended effects of Flints’ inventions are a humorous representation of the real world effects you call out like introducing invasive species.
Also an aside, the premise of this movie is also a great critique of the tech-as-missions phenomena where a crazy inventor (or a bunch of students) descends on some remote island or poor village and decides their way of life is too primitive and must be fixed. And oh look, we just happen to have an invention for this…
Ok, this is really out there, and maybe I’ve got this all wrong, but why does the Matrix feel like Eco-modernism gone wrong? First of all, both inside and outside the Matrix, people are only seen living inside dense population centers, which is basically what cities are (the Matrix I believe is based on Chicago, and then there’s Zion and the farm the people inside the Matrix are kept). The energy used is the densest energy available to them at the time, and it appears to be very similar to the improved nuclear energy described (little chance of failure, runs on the expired material it produces, etc.). This energy also appears very clean, since it seems to produce no actual waste, and,in fact, it prevents humans from making waste from living, so it’s extremely environmentally friendly. In other words, the Matrix would be everything an Eco-modernist dreamed about turned into a nightmare.
Great eyes Tallis. The Matrix is an amazing ecological feat, and I think it would be considered dystopian eco-modernism.
Remember that the AI created the Matrix solely for power purposes: During the war between AI and humans, one side (humans conveniently don’t remember who but I bet the machines do) “scorched the sky” and humans though this would make the machines die out.
Morpheus: “We don’t know who struck first, us or them. But we do know it was us that scorched the sky. At the time, they were dependent on solar power. It was believed they would be unable to survive without an energy source as abundant as the sun.”
Considering the Matrix from an eco-modernist lens shows that conscious AI– a purely artificial lifeform– transcends the cyborgian fuzziness that Haraway attributes to androids and other man-machine hybrids. The AI can treat humans like just any another organism in nature (as humans used to treat plants, bacteria, etc). Necessarily for its survival, but only if cultivated properly.
In a sense, humans avoided utter destruction by making themselves a necessary resource for the machines. The machines then became the masters of nature.
🙂 You are Yummy.
Trying to think of specifically ecomodernist examples, but ecomodernism is realatively new (last 5 years or so) and is fairly niche on top of that. With that said, Star Wars: The Old Republic’s interpretation of Alderaan looks to be fairly similar, if by accident.
Alderaan is depicted as having rather vertical cities surrounded by untamed forests. This vertical city layout fits the ecomodernist idea of trying to keep dense populations to be more efficient.
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