A Response from Rick McGahey, Director, Environmental Policy and Sustainability Management, Milano School of International Affairs, Management, and Urban Policy, The New School for Public Engagement
"Agree or not, the manifesto will stir up debate among progressives devoted to stopping and reversing climate change. The explicit embrace of technological solutions to climate change and the endorsement of a higher global standard of living challenges environmentalists who believe reducing economic growth and fostering subsistence and rural modes of living must be part of saving the planet.
I agree with the ecomodernists that if we pose the battle that way, the climate and the planet will lose. A higher economic standard of living can be compatible with a greener planet. But the ecomodernists need to analyze power and exploitation to understand why we have the technologies and economic arrangements we do. The solution is not reducing economic growth, but the movement needs an analysis of economic and political power to understand why we have the technologies we do, and what it will take to transform them."