Climate Tribes

The climate tribes of today

Via Nadia Asparouhova [1]:

"Here are seven tribes that are influencing climate work today. They are very loosely organized from the center (or “lollipop stick,” if you will), radiating outwards towards doomerism, but I wouldn’t focus too much on the ranking.

Energy maximalism

Instead of trying to limit consumption, energy maximalists envision a world in which energy is no longer a limiting resource. Their goal is to develop technology and policy that makes it possible to have endless energy. (It is notable that this group uses the term “energy” and seems to avoid the term “climate.”)

This summer, Eli Dourado and Austin Vernon published a paper called “Energy Superabundance: How Cheap, Abundant Energy Will Shape Our Future,” where they argue that energy abundance is directly correlated to economic growth, and that industry and policy have been overly focused on limiting rather than unlocking more energy.

Many people in this tribe are affiliated with ecomodernism, an umbrella philosophy that takes an anthropocentric view of the environment. (Several other tribes on this list would also be considered ecomodernist.) Breakthrough Institute, which was founded in 2007, is an organization affiliated with both ecomodernism and energy maximalism.

While many energy maximalists support nuclear as part of a broader energy portfolio, a subset could be called nuclear maximalists: those who believe that nuclear is the best, and ideally primary, form of energy (ex. Michael Shellenberger, Isabelle Boemeke).

Climate urbanism

Climate urbanists envision a densely populated world that’s harmoniously networked, industrious, and resilient to climate threats. Cities are the primary leverage point for their solutions, reflecting both a global trend towards urbanization, as well as providing the best “bang for your buck” of being able to experiment with climate solutions that can impact millions. Cities can also operate somewhat independently from state and federal governance, which can make it easier to enact changes.

It’s hard to know where exactly “urbanism” stops and “climate urbanism” begins, and I debated whether this should be its own tribe at all, as urbanism is motivated by much more than just climate. Nevertheless, many urbanist initiatives are also climate initiatives, and some urbanists explicitly invoke climate motivations when discussing their work. Eric Quidenus-Wahlforss, who previously co-founded SoundCloud and now started Dance, an e-bike subscription startup, explains his mission as “accelerating the transformation of cities and just making cities more livable and shifting the mix of cars in cities…and I think if many cities transform like that, it’s a very meaningful impact on climate.”

Lyn Stoler and Sonam Velani recently introduced the term “climate industrialism”, which they describe as an “optimistic, action-oriented response.” Like energy maximalists, they believe climate solutions are directly correlated with economic growth and “[reject] the idea that climate solutions have to be rooted in scarcity and sacrifice. Instead, it’s a bet that climate solutions rooted in abundance and progress can and will create value for people in their daily lives, homes, communities, and cities.” Unlike energy maximalists, climate urbanists are more collective- than individual-oriented – hence the focus on urban environments.

Climate tech

Those in climate tech bring a “disruptor’s mindset” to climate. They can be characterized as mildly reactionary to the eco-globalists, believing that the last two decades of global negotiations have little to show for, and that we can instead move faster and more efficiently through the early-stage private sector – primarily, startups. Some in climate tech still have battle scars from the early 2000s cleantech bubble, but enough time has passed that a new generation is willing to learn from previous lessons and experiment with new opportunities.

Those in climate tech see policy as a means of unlocking innovation, rather than as a primary tool for change. The goal is to remove policy roadblocks, not add more (see, for example, the Institute for Progress’s paper on National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) reform, which argues that the environmental review process is “slowing down the clean energy transition”). Instead, they focus on innovating through commercial markets.

Chris Sacca, for example, is not unlike John Doerr in some ways: they are both charismatic venture capitalists who believe in investing in the future of climate technology. But whereas Doerr still believes policy and regulation are a key part of that strategy, Sacca states that: “The reality is, I hate politics….For a startup person, all those layers are maddening. We are used to seeing a problem, building something we think helps, and then giving it directly to users and buyers….Counting on our leaders to really make the scale of changes we need is an exercise in futility.”

While energy maximalists skew more towards the R&D side of technology, climate tech operates more on the commercial side of the pipeline: bringing existing technologies to market. Those in climate tech are always looking for low-hanging fruit, overlooked gaps and points of leverage. The carbon removal initiative Frontier, for example, released a “carbon removal (CDR) gap database”, highlighting major knowledge and innovation barriers to carbon removal.

Climate technologists are also less opinionated about climate’s influence on culture or lifestyle (beyond startups-as-an-ideology); to them, climate is more of an operational and commercialization issue.

Eco-globalism

This group is focused on regulation as the primary vehicle of change, with the goal of reducing energy consumption and carbon emissions.

Unlike the aforementioned tribes, eco-globalists take a scarcity approach to climate. As they see it, we only have a finite set of resources, and the major task is to figure out how to allocate them efficiently. This mindset naturally puts the focus on regulation – whether literally (ex. policymaking) or figuratively (ex. tracking and measurement). Whereas climate technologists see regulation as a way to remove roadblocks, eco-globalists see regulation as a way to enforce behavior.

While those in climate tech are more likely to have a background in startups, eco-globalists are more likely to have a background in finance or management consulting. But there are exceptions: John Doerr favors investing in and developing new technology, but his thinking is unmistakably eco-globalist. Doerr’s most recent book, Speed and Scale, proposes an action plan modeled after the OKR accountability system. Each section of the scorecard identifies a target to meet, such as “Remove 10 gigatons of carbon dioxide per year from the atmosphere.” Similarly, climate solutions like Watershed and Patch could be classified as eco-globalist, despite being startups, because they are enterprise platforms focused on climate accounting.

Eco-globalists are comfortable with the business sector; they believe climate solutions don’t have to come at the expense of financial returns. However, they’re more focused on making an impact via public corporations (ex. ESG investing), whereas climate technologists focus on startups.

Environmentalism

The environmentalists are the anti-corporate counterpart to the eco-globalists, and the modern descendants of “classic” environmentalism that dominated the second half of the 20th century (more on that in a bit). Like eco-globalists, environmentalists focus on sustainability as the ideal outcome, but they’re more concerned with the impact of individual (rather than collective) actions, whether that’s holding Exxon accountable or reducing personal energy consumption. They blame the fossil fuel industry for our climate problems, and believe that corporate lobbying efforts are hindering progress today.

Within environmentalism, there are two further sub-groupings:

Those focused on climate justice, namely holding others accountable through anti-corporate and political advocacy; and Degrowth, which is concerned with finding meaning and impact in focusing on local communities, like towns, neighborhoods, and their own homes. After much deliberation, I decided these groups belong to the same tribe because they share similar visions, even if their tactics differ. Michael E. Mann, for example, blames fossil fuel companies for the climate crisis in his book The New Climate War: The Fight to Take Back Our Planet, while degrowth advocate Samuel Alexander calls for “simple living” as a “desirable alternative to consumer culture,” which he believes will “save our planet from the environmental catastrophe towards which we are so enthusiastically marching.” But both share the premise that a better world is one in which corporate interests take a backseat to sustainable living.

I think of climate justice as a more defensive position (protecting the planet from bad actors), whereas degrowth is a more offensive position (advocating for a new way of thinking about the economy). Despite its branding, degrowthers are not really regressive, from a tactical perspective: they’re actively trying to transition us to a new way of doing things, rather than arguing within the boundaries of our existing paradigm.

Neopastoralism

Neopastoralists believe that technology has corrupted our natural environment and that society is unraveling, followed by a rewriting of our political and social systems. Like doomers, they feel that the world is changing for the worse, but unlike doomers, they are in the “acceptance” rather than “anger” stage of grief. As the Doomer Optimists put it, it is “an orientation that says: we see the world as it is, and we move forward with a practical, positive vision despite the challenges.”

Neopastoralists believe we need to prepare for the coming transition, but life will go on regardless. They are focused on climate adaptation, but from a self-preservation standpoint. They believe self-reliance is more important than coordinating with others, and prioritize protecting themselves and their loved ones.

(Edit: Jason Snyder, a cofounder of Doomer Optimism, feels this categorization doesn’t adequately capture the nuance of their work. I’ve slightly edited my opening description where I agree my language could be more precise, but otherwise stand by my analysis; however, I’m linking to his response on Twitter here to provide additional color on how Doomer Optimists view themselves.)

Doomerism

Doomers believe there is no hope for the future. Like the environmentalists, they are frequently in tension with eco-globalists, whom they perceive as the only tribe capable of saving our planet, and whom they blame for allowing us to fall into a climate crisis from which we can no longer return.

Doomers are largely disconnected from positive-sum climate efforts; their actions are centered around managing their subjective experience of the world. Within this tribe, there are two major sub-types:

Introspective: focused on managing their emotions amidst external turmoil – Britt Wray, for example, states that activism is “unhelpful” for combatting eco-anxiety Externalized: channeling their anger into performative “shock” activism, such as Greta Thunberg, who scolded UN Climate Action Summit attendees in 2019, or Just Stop Oil activists Phoebe Plummer and Anna Holland, who threw cans of soup on a Van Gogh painting. Doomers see themselves as victims of a climate crisis, and do not feel empowered to stop or otherwise influence the inevitable apocalypse."

(https://nadia.xyz/climate-tribes)

Visualization

Graph via https://nadia.xyz/assets/img/climate-tribes/climate-tribes-chart.png