Climate & Environment
Techno-Fix
Definition
A techno-fix is a technological solution applied to a problem whose roots are social, economic or behavioural — treating symptoms while leaving causes intact. The critique, running from 1960s critics of technology to today's geoengineering and offsetting debates, is not that technology is useless but that fixes framed as substitutes for structural change delay it: cleaner cars instead of fewer car trips, carbon capture instead of phase-out, desalination instead of demand management.
References
This reference provides supporting context for how “Techno-Fix” is defined and used.
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Overview
How it is used
The critique structures technology assessment, geoengineering governance debates, and scepticism toward offsetting and ecomodernist narratives.
Why it matters
The techno-fix debate is sustainability's central technology argument: which innovations are bridges and which are detours.