3.2 Technology, capitalism and the climate

Such endless growth in the use of technology is often linked to capitalism – an economic system in which private entities and individuals are encouraged to purchase or sell material goods to turn a profit. Many consider capitalism to be an unsustainable concept, as infinite growth cannot take place on a planet with finite resources.

Furthermore, the primary indicator of growth used to measure how well a country is doing – the gross domestic product (GDP) – calculates wealth by the products made and sold in a country, but ignores some significant factors in these GDP calculations. One thing that isn’t counted in the GDP figures is the environment. GDP considers the final products made and sold; the environmental costs aren’t considered. This means that the charge on nature for making a product is ignored, regardless of its impact on the environment.

Understanding the root cause of the environmental crisis and the negative impact of technology on the climate are the first steps in tackling the problem. For example, the theory of ‘degrowth’ holds that an infinite expansion of the economy is fundamentally contradictory to the finiteness of material resources on Earth. Jones (2020) breaks degrowth into four ‘pillars’:

• Simplicity – doing more with less.
• Care – putting people and nature at the heart of how we live as a society (rather than growth and material commodities).
• Conviviality – breaking our dependence on material things and technology.
• Destruction of accumulation – putting our needs before our wants.

In the article ‘Digital Education Tomorrow [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] ’ (part of the open educational resource Digital Education and Degrowth), these pillars are discussed in relation to sustainable digital education. The article (and the wider resource) is an interesting read, if you have time, and raises issues that would be worth exploring with students.