Talk:Ecomodernism

Standpoints on some things ?

In the article, it states that ecomodernists "prefer substituting denser energy fuels for less dense fuels". They do appear to support battery electric cars though (see https://thebreakthrough.org/index.php/programs/energy-and-climate/how-the-economics-of-the-left-and-right-have-failed-the-electric-car ) so how does that add up ? Biofuels are much more energy dense than (any) battery.

Other things are equally contradictory and some people calling themselves "ecomodernists" do accept several things and others do not; for instance

• the standpoint on fracking and traditional agriculture (which uses pesticides);

both of these pollute the soil, so what's the standpoint on pollution ? The fact that GMO's are promoted is something that can make sense, but I don't see how polluting the soil or other fauna/flora (with pesticides) can be considered ecologic. Some ecomodernists like Mark Lynas seem to have a softer standpoint on this, as he considers fracking an alternative to coal (and yet coal is promoted, as it's a "energy denser" fuel than wood ?) See http://www.marklynas.org/2015/09/ecomodernism-and-a-plea-for-depolarisation/ Also, the softer standpoint of Mark Lynas doesn't make that much sense neither, since coal doesn't need to be stopped any more, rather it's being priced out of the market via the regular market mechanism -as it is more expensive than gas-

• in this wikipedia article, it is stated that ecomodernists do promote biofuels (like biomass), but looking at the website of the finnish ecomodernists, they seem not to promote it (and rather campaign against it) (https://jmkorhonen.net/2015/10/01/the-environmental-policy-of-finnish-ecomodernists-in-brief/ )

• another thing in regards to electricity production is equally unlogical: the philosophy of ecomodernism is to "decouple from nature". This indeed makes sense for agriculture, and in case of aquaculture, ... it's a very good thing. However, when we apply this philosophy to energy production (which is an area they are also active on/have thoughts about), it doesn't make sense since all electricity is man-made, and gathered from nature. This is true for renewable energy, as well as fossil fuels (the latter has been locked away since a long period and so isn't part of the working ecosystem any more, so could "more or less" fall into that definition). They however envision the use of (advanced) biofuels as the best option. So this isn't in line with the "decoupling philosophy".

• also weird is that they don't promote carbon taxing, but do promote carbon capture and storage (CCS). If the latter is used, the first isn't needed, but how can it be ensured that everyone applies it (they're even against regulation too, so this seems unachievable then) ?

• unlimited (economic) growth too seems something that is at odds with the health of the planet

• vegetarianism seems to be the most efficient way of providing food (so would be in line with their other thoughts on efficiency -using fuels that are the most energy dense-), but read this post, it seems they don't promote vegetarianism (and not even flexitarianism).

Perhaps these things can be cleared out, and the varied opinions between the ecomodernists can be mentioned (at present, the article makes it seem like every ecomodernist has a same opinion on certain issues

KVDP (talk) 17:30, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

Open Letters section

This section notes that various figures associated with ecomodernism also released a variety of open letters. However, I do not see any direct links between ecomodernism and this topics in the cited sources. For this reason, it seems that some leaps in logic are being made beyond what is available in sourcing to connect these open letters to ecomodernism as a general topic. I am considering removing this section (and ideally relocating it somewhere relevant). Jlevi (talk) 03:18, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

agreed that this section should be removed. It seems to be advertisement of such letters, which were also added to pages related to the authors of the letters. They’ve since been removed there as well. There’s a really strange trail of single purpose accounts between this page, the breakthrough institute, and its founders, nordhaus and Shellenberger. -Hobomok (talk) 14:20, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

References

A variety of ELs were removed a while ago many of which appear potentially useful:

• Vincent Ialenti. "Alter-Ecologies: Envisioning Papal & Ecomodernist Nuclear Energy Policy Futures." In Laudato Si': Reflections on the Legal, Political and Moral Authority of Catholic Social Thought in an Era of Climate Crisis (ed. Frank Pasquale). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
• Vincent Ialenti (6 April 2016). "Generation." Cultural Anthropology.
• "Decoupled ideals: 'Ecomodernist Manifesto' reframes sustainable development, but the goal remains the same." (21 April 2015). Nature.
• Robert Bryce (17 April 2015). "The Environmentalists' Civil War." The National Review.
• Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus (22 April 2015). "Want to save the planet? Say bye-bye to nature." USA Today.
• Mark Buchanan (5 May 2015). "Save the World, Give up on Nature." Bloomberg View.
• Fred Pearce (17 June 2015). "A green divide to keep us and nature apart would harm, not heal." New Scientist.
• Gabriel Ignetti and Rick Maltese (4 Sept 2017) "The Ecomodernist Podcast"
• Vincent Ialenti "Generation (Lexicon for an Anthropocene Yet Unseen, Cultural Anthropology)" Archived 2016-05-07 at the Wayback Machine

Jlevi (talk) 03:37, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

@Jlevi:, I know this was more than a year ago.... If you're still here, consider if this were a featured article, would any of those be used in the body of the article? If yes, then we need that article text and citation. For the rest, they might be perfectly acceptable external links, and whoever removed them, if they are still around, should explain why? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 01:00, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

List of technologies

I moved this from the lead

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).

References

The first problem is "commonly", which is a WP:WEASELWORD. The second problem is that this text appears to speak in WP:WIKIVOICE for all ecomodernists, but its supported only by Shellenberger's "Manifesto". The third problem is that there's no need to rattle off a list of possible technologies (and the possible entries are much much longer than this list). After all, this is the WP:LEAD which should just summarize the article's contents. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 00:56, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

NPOV

The article currently calls opposing nuclear energy "anti-scientific policies", with no citation. I can believe (with a citation) that ecomodernists believe that, but there are also tons of organizations of scientists that oppose nuclear energy for what they believe are sound scientific reasons. Greg (talk) 10:17, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

@Greg Lindahl Agreed. I recommend and support adding what you’re proposing. This page needs to be cleaned up generally. It reads as a promotion for ecomodernist philosophy without many critiques. That’s a common theme with ecomodernists and their philosophy across Wikipedia.

If you look at the history of this page, you’ll find that it was started by energeticsanalyst, previously known as "BreakthroughInstitute", who has only written:

1. On this page
2. About ecomodernists Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger and their Breakthrough Institute
3. Has added Nordhaus and Shellenberger’s articles about shale gas and fracking to Shale gas and Fracking/Fracking in the United States.

Essentially, if there are promotional problems on a page about ecomodernism, the breakthrough institute, or its founders, you can usually be sure one of about 4-5 single-purpose accounts (Wikipedia:Single-purpose account) has created or heavily edited the page. This one is explicitly connected to the Breakthrough Institute. Please add what you’re proposing, and if you’d like to make an attempt at cleaning up the promotional nature of the page I think that would be helpful as well. In the meantime, adding a Wikipedia:Conflict of interest tag might be useful.—Hobomok (talk)

Hobomok (talk) 13:47, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

As you can tell from my edit history, I'm an astrophysicist and early music/dance expert. So yes, adding a label is about as much as I can suggest. Greg (talk) 22:02, 22 March 2023 (UTC)