8. The solution is social and political, not just technological.

2023/06/07 Elhuyar Zientzia

• Dekalogoa
• Ingurumena

Technological solutions for the emergency climate are often proposed: wind farms, electric cars, carbon absorption technologies, huge offshore wind turbines, satellites to monitor gas emissions… Cleaner technology needs to be designed and renewable energies used. But changing gas technologies will not always be enough to cope with the enormous energy expenditure of our economic system and to compensate for the greenhouse gases it generates.

Technology itself does not have enough capacity to respond to the scale of the challenge of the planet. Because the problem is not only technological, and therefore the solution is not. Although technology can help, scientific evidence indicates that it is not enough to cope with the environmental emergency, as it does not solve the problem on which it is based.

The problems arising from the current economic system are to a large extent those that have led to the emergence of the climate, so solutions must also be political, economic and social. It requires, inter alia, a rethinking of the economic system, in which current consumption patterns, attitudes and dependency on continued economic development are generated. If not, the belief that technology will serve to solve problems creates an excess of hope in society and delays effective action against these basic problems.

On the other hand, when talking about what a technology can bring, it is also necessary to look at who is in the hands of that technology today, what consequences it has and who improves lives.