"In this paper we introduce the Journal of Labor and Society’s special issue on the ecomodernist features of imperialism and argue that these concepts must be theorized in tandem. The introduction begins by showing how ecomodernism and imperialism combine in practice through the example of the Council of Foreign Relations’ ‘Climate Realism Initiative’. It then charts ecomodernism’s emergence as a distinct theory and practice, arguing that it can take capitalist and anti-capitalist forms, both of which reproduce imperialist mechanisms of accumulation on a world scale. The paper’s third section questions the anti-modernist critique of ecomodernism offered by the concepts of extractivism and green colonialism. We then develop what we consider a more precise and rigorously anti-imperialist critique of imperialism’s ecomodernist aspects before concluding with some political propositions about the necessity of what we call a ‘communist ecological critique’ and by summarizing the special issue’s contributions."

https://brill.com/view/journals/jlso/aop/article-10.1163-24714607-bja10207/article-10.1163-24714607-bja10207.xml

#Imperialism #AntiImperialism #Ecomodernism #Capitalism #Extractivism #GreenColonialism

Critique of George Monbiot's recent, and rather puzzling, pieces on food systems

The challenge of food ecomodernism: a puzzle outlined - resilience
https://www.resilience.org/stories/2025-12-22/the-challenge-of-food-ecomodernism-a-puzzle-outlined/
#food #ecomodernism #technolatry

"Capitalist ecomodernist visions require a very rapid and large-scale buildout of zero-carbon energy infrastructure. But, under capitalism, investment and production is organized around whatever is most profitable to capital, rather than what is most necessary for achieving social and ecological goals. This creates a problem for the energy transition, because while renewables are increasingly cheap, fossil fuels are three times more profitable, in large part because they are more conducive to monopoly power (Christophers 2025). So, capital continues to flow to fossil fuels and we get inadequate investments in clean energy. In recent months, several major financial firms have abandoned their low-carbon investments because they are not profitable enough. In other words, ecomodernism’s commitment to capitalism ultimately works against its ecological objectives. This may help explain why ecomodernists tend to promote nuclear power, because an energy grid dominated by capital-intensive forms of energy production with high barriers to entry is more likely to be profitable.

The green transition ultimately cannot be left in the hands of capital. It will require substantial public finance, public works, industrial policy and planning in order to build out necessary renewable energy capacity, as well as to undertake other low-profit or zero-profit activities such as expanding public transit, insulating buildings, and regenerating ecosystems. Furthermore, increasing these activities cannot be done while national productive capacities are already maxed out by capitalist production. It will necessarily require scaling down less-necessary production, to liberate labour, engineers, resources etc to be remobilized for this purpose. Here too, this is not something that can be achieved within capitalism. Capital will not voluntarily scale down profitable forms of production."

https://brill.com/view/journals/jlso/aop/article-10.1163-24714607-bja10196/article-10.1163-24714607-bja10196.xml

#Ecomodernism #Ecosocialism #GreenGrowth #Capitalism #GreenTransition

“Progress is inevitable“ - STWF Bad Ideas ep 5 ft. George Monbiot

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVLNATrU6JQ

I like the way Monbiot frames the current situation, he's got a bit of non-doomer #capitalocene framing. It's still not critical enough for me, but I appreciate it.

Fascism is capitalism in decline, but maybe it's also carnism in decline. I'm not sure how the goal of inclusiveness and "belonging" can be met while we exclude non-human sentient individuals from moral consideration and, instead, treat them as objects, commodities and capital. It just sets up a bad culture, a bad paradigm. The reason we criticize "dehumanization" is because mainstream cultures and related civilizations treat non-humans absolutely horrible.

Raise the moral floor.

#capitalism #anticapitalism #conservatism #fascism #environment #sustainability #neoliberalism #grifters #opportunism #degrowth #progress #ecomodernism

"Ted Nordhaus, co-founder and executive director of the Breakthrough Institute, talks to Leigh and Alex the 20th anniversary of "The Death of Environmentalism" and the 10th anniversary of "The Ecomodernist Manifesto". We discuss:

- The fundamental philosophical differences between "building-out" and "restraint".
- Whether industrial policy like the Inflation Reduction Act is in line with the ecomodern approach
- Why environmentalism differs in the US versus Western Europe
- Why modernisation gets lost in discussions on the environment
- What techno-optimism and what techno-fixes are
- What the Abundance Agenda is"

#Ecomodernism

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/439-we-can-shape-our-own-environment-ft-ted-nordhaus/id1229278776?i=1000670076988

Good read and a nice alternative vision to the 'techno-optimist' manifesto dystopia of Andreessen et al.

"How to unite local initiatives for a more #sustainable global future"

This article challenges the belief in high-tech solutions to solve socio-environmental crises, proposing a political vision beyond “green growth” and “ #ecomodernism .” We thus introduce “ #cosmolocal ” production, a configuration that strives to connect communities around shared resources.

https://www.resilience.org/stories/2024-05-01/how-to-unite-local-initiatives-for-a-more-sustainable-global-future/

YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZ3jCwAAdSE

Verso - Forget Eco-Modernism
https://www.versobooks.com/en-ca/blogs/news/forget-eco-modernism

De Gruyter Handbook of Degrowth
https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110778359/html#contents

The Great Unfettering
https://newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/the-great-unfettering

Podcast
https://www.patreon.com/posts/podcast-36-and-102277751

Strategies for a new municipalism: Public–common partnerships against the new enclosures
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00420980221094700#tab-contributors

#ecomodernism #degrowth #LibertarianMunicipalism

Fully automated luxury gay space communism?

Nah.

Fully manual simple LGBTQ+ Earthbound green-left degrowth?

Fuck yeah.

#Degrowth #Ecomodernism #GreenGrowth #Greenwashing #Technosolutionism #climatechange #Polycrisis

https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/blogs/news/forget-eco-modernism

A really insightful piece summarising the debates between #degrowth and #ecomodernism, and some of the fairly serious problems with the eco-modernist position from Kai Heron

https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/blogs/news/forget-eco-modernism