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Abstract Degrowth—the reduction of energy and material throughput via shrinking total economic production and consumption in a socially sustainable way—would entail fewer working hours. However, work time reduction is not a sufficient condition for lower throughput because people may engage in environmentally harmful activities during expanded leisure. The purpose of this paper is to revisit the pessimistic and critical traditions to explicate unconventional utopian images of inactivity as a valuable feature of a better society. Pessimism makes a case for renouncing dissatisfaction-causing desires, an ethic that takes on a collective and futuristic form in Eduard von Hartmann and Emil Cioran. In the critical tradition, an indirect foundation of degrowth thinking, the central goal of the abolition of alienated labor is elevated to utopian heights in Theodor W. Adorno's brief portrayal of peace as humanity reconciled with nature in rest. These forecasts and hopes help envision what aspects of leisure may look like in post-growth society. For example, work time reduction policies should be paired with consumption-curbing policies, especially advertising limits. I warn against recuperation via "minimalist" commodities. Readers interested in degrowth and sustainability will benefit from contributions to discussions surrounding work time reduction, sustainable consumption, and post-growth imaginaries. Highlights • Work time reduction is not a sufficient condition for degrowth. • Increased inactivity is an underexplored form of low-impact leisure. • Pessimism and critical theory help visualize an idler society. • The argument is formulated as resignation from desire in the pessimistic tradition. • Critical theory envisions reconciliation, perpetual peace in a post-work society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alternative energy development is a commonly proposed technological means to reduce environmental pressure. Yet there is an unintended and paradoxical “energy boomerang effect,” or, when decarbonizing the energy supply increases total energy use. This paradoxical outcome presupposes a particular set of social-structural conditions: the imperative to utilize energy to increase economic growth (and, thus, energy throughput) and the use of energy production itself as a capital accumulation strategy. The energy boomerang effect is likely not an outcome of alternative energy development per se, but only of alternative energy development in a particular kind of society. Economic degrowth through the collective ownership of energy systems would provide conditions conducive to containing the energy boomerang effect, or, to better realize the potential environmental gains of alternative energy converters. A degrowth society with a collectively-owned energy system would allow for a reduction in total energy use as well as a lower ratio of fossil fuel energy to alternative energy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The policy instruments at the core of the notion of green growth are central to South Korea’s National Strategy for Green Growth (NSGG): (1) green stimulus packages; (2) “price-based” or market corrective policies; and (3) green research and development to bring about a technological shift that increases resource efficiency and the use of renewable energy sources. This assessment of the NSGG explores the potentials and limitations of (3) in light of the Jevons paradox, the commonly found association between improved efficiency and increased resource use. Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and total energy use have increased since the implementation of the NSGG despite overall improvements in energy efficiency. We argue that the Jevons paradox is a fundamental limitation of the NSGG and suggest policy alternatives to the NSGG: (1) increased public participation in environmental decision-making and (2) economic degrowth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Georg Simmel and Max Scheler provide a framework for making judgements about the desirability of technological development and use, an evaluation absent from a largely relativistic contemporary sociology of technology. The appropriate role of technology in society is to aid in the attainment of ultimate values (ends). Both Simmel and Scheler framed the problem of technology as the elevation of technology to an ultimate value. The modern valuation of technology as an end is irrational because it is a reversal of the means-ends relationship and values the general development of technology instead of the potential benefits of particular technical developments. This inverted valuation is also detrimental to the cultivation of “subjective culture” and harmful to life. The importance of Simmel and Scheler for the contemporary sociology of technology is an illustration of what an evaluation of technology presupposes: claims about the general nature of modern technology as well as its essence. Although insightful, the cultural and phenomenological sociologies of technology found in Simmel and Scheler could be strengthened with structural analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this analysis is to explore how U.S. grower perceptions of the future potential of different weed management approaches is conditioned by faith in technological fixes and how the latter is influenced by the rate and persistence of herbicide resistant weeds (HRW). We ground our analysis in rural studies literature on location and environmental sociological evaluations of techno-optimism. Using a coding typology of techno-optimism, -skepticism, and -dissonance, focus group data show that farmers in Southern states responded with more skepticism and dissonance to the potential of chemical herbicides as a solution to HRW while farmers in Northern states, where there have historically been fewer HRW, have greater optimism in the potential of chemicals to solve the problem. We conclude that (1) the presence of HRWs provides an important context for farmer ideology and (2) those working with farmers in areas with high HRW rates may be able to tap into the skepticism and dissonance farmers feel toward the future potential of chemical herbicide solutions by providing integrated weed management alternatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This project recommences an underdeveloped conversation between the sociology of technology and classical sociology. There was a vibrant and consistent interest in technology among sociology's founders between Marx and Ogburn and revisiting this tradition is beneficial for contemporary sociological studies of technology. In addition to functioning as exemplars of excellence for the sociology of technology, classical sociology provides distinctive and important considerations and contributions, including: the potential benefits of borrowing technology (Veblen), the ecological influences on technological development and use (Cooley), the impact of technology on science (Mauss), and the rationalization of technology (Weber). Most importantly, classical sociology offers partial though unique frameworks for examining technology in society and vice versa, frameworks that are novel precisely because they are out of sync with recent trends. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Space colonization justifications employ the same logic that oversaw Earth's ruin. • Capitalism's persistence is taken for granted in these justifications. • Space colonization is untenable if social alternatives to capitalism are considered. We apply the concepts "irrational rationality," a term condensing the Frankfurt School's assessment of the contradictions of capitalist rationalization, and Fisher's (2008) notion of "capitalist realism," the termination of the ability to imagine alternatives to capitalism, to sociologically analyze the case for space colonization as a means to preserve the human species from a catastrophic ecological future. Along with failing to make a convincing instrumental case for space colonization as an effective means to preserve the species, justifications for space colonization are irrationally rational because they employ the same logic and inversion of means and ends that oversaw the degradation of Earth. Capitalist realism underpins the contemporary case for space colonization as the continuation of capitalism is not only taken for granted, but, further, capitalist priorities are used as justification. The case for space colonization is untenable when social alternatives to capitalism, the driver of the ecological crisis, are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Enzo Paci offers a critical phenomenology of the human-technology-environment interface. Revisiting Paci makes two contributions: (1) a critical social phenomenology of technology and (2) a conception of the lifeworld as environment-dependent. Birthed from a conversation between Husserl and Marx, his theory of the lifeworld as need and the satisfaction of need directs attention to humanity's necessary interaction with the environment as well as an understanding of techniques as means to satisfy needs in historically specific social contexts. "Technistic alienation" occurs when these techniques dominate their authors, from the atomic bomb to industrial labor, and their consciousness - for instance, when misplaced science is used to justify unjust social conditions. "Intentional technology" refers to the potential of "returning" technology to its authors to formulate a rational society. • Paci offers a critical phenomenology of the human-technology-environment interface. • His theory of the lifeworld stresses our dependence on technics and the environment. • "Technistic alienation" occurs when technics dominate their authors. • "Intentional technology" is the positive potential of technics in a rational society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing from the critical theory of Herbert Marcuse, we expect that the fossil fuel industry will support carbon capture and storage (CCS) because it can further and prolong profitability in the industry. Through a qualitative analysis of fossil fuel company and trade organization framings of CCS, three frames are identified: (1) faith in innovation , or, the belief that any barrier that fetters technological solutions to environmental problems can be overcome; (2) value instrumentalization , or, the predominance of instrumental values when justifying or explaining the benefits of technological solutions; and (3) status quo maintenance , or, the application or anticipated application of technological solutions in order to reproduce the most fundamental processes and social structures that characterize modern societies. Frames tend to omit the following issues and concerns relevant to CCS: (4) potential social and environmental risks (risk minimization); (5) non-instrumental values (value restriction); and (6) possible future scenarios that are qualitatively different than a growing economy powered by increased energy throughput (possibility blindness). The potential climate and energy policy implications of these framings are analyzed and assessed. • The fossil fuel industry promotes carbon capture and storage through three frames. • Faith in innovation : barriers to CCS will be overcome. • Value instrumentalization : justifications for CCS are means-oriented. • Status quo maintenance : CCS can sustain a fossil fuel-based growing economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]