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Green Dreams

Why Technology Can't Save the World

Green Dreams cover

Green Dreams

Why Technology Can't Save the World

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Pre-order. Available 04 Feb 2027
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Description

Electric cars, smart apps, green AI, carbon capture, solar panels-everywhere we turn, we're told technology will save the planet. Green Dreams shows why that promise is so compelling, and why it keeps us chasing solutions that leave the real causes of the climate crisis untouched.

Blending cultural criticism, political analysis, and environmental history, Green Dreams traces the rise of green techno-optimism from postwar fantasies of progress to Silicon Valley manifestos, EV marketing, Big Tech sustainability campaigns, and Hollywood eco-futures. Along the way, it exposes the hidden costs of supposedly “clean” technologies: extractive mining, exploding energy demand, ecological destruction, and the preservation of systems built on endless growth and consumption. Rather than rejecting technology outright, Tanner Mirrlees and Imre Szeman argue that technological solutions can matter only if paired with deeper social, political, and economic transformation. Provocative, accessible, and sharply argued, Green Dreams offers a powerful critique of one of the defining ideologies of our time.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction: The Comfort of Solutions

1. The EV Illusion
2. Inventing Techno-Optimism
3. California Dreamin'
4. Code Green
5. The Dream Machine
6. Power Plays

Conclusion: Exit Strategies
Coda: The New Laws of Nature
Bibliography
Index

Product details

Bloomsbury Academic Test
Published 04 Feb 2027
Format Hardback
Edition 1st
Pages 240
ISBN 9781350443174
Imprint Bloomsbury Academic
Dimensions 216 x 138 mm
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing

About the contributors

Author

Tanner Mirrlees

Tanner Mirrlees is Professor of Communication and…

Author

Imre Szeman

Imre Szeman is the inaugural Director of the Insti…

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