Science denialism, carbon trading, and geoengineering together form a coordinated neoliberal climate strategy.

Evidence

I think most people on the left don’t fully realize that the phenomena of “science denialism,” “carbon permit trading,” and the nascent science of “geoengineering” are not three unrelated or rival panaceas, but together constitute the full-spectrum neoliberal response to the challenge of global warming. The reason this array qualifies as neoliberal is twofold: initially, they were all proposals originating from within the array of think tanks and academic units affiliated with the Neoliberal Thought Collective; and then, if and when they come to be deployed in tandem, the net consequence is to leave the entire problem to be solved, ultimately not by the state, but rather by the market. The promotion of denialism buys time for the other two options; the financialization of carbon credits gets all the attention in the medium term, while appeals to geoengineering incubate in the wings as a techno-utopian deus ex machina to swoop down when the other options fail. At each step along the way, the neoliberals guarantee their core tenet remains in force: the market will arbitrate any and all responses to biosphere degradation, because it knows more than any of us about nature and society. — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 926

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Naomi Klein’s This Changes Everything account of market-based climate responses and the ‘neoliberal thought collective’ framing Mirowski develops with Dieter Plehwe. — connects to: Geoengineering is the logical extension of neoliberal market-fix doctrine — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 931; Economists’ conflicted interests drive their advocacy of carbon markets — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 928; Technofeudalism bifurcates the green agenda into rival fiefs that fossil firms exploit — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, 630 (+8 more)
• SEED: Angle: how left climate advocates unwittingly serve the market agenda by picking one of the three options to oppose rather than rejecting the whole triad.
• ADDENDUM: Relevant to ‘Grafting & Growth’ in that it traces how infrastructure and market solutions to ecological crisis are choreographed in tandem, though the tie is thematic rather than literal.

Broader Connections

• Geoengineering is the logical extension of neoliberal market-fix doctrine #corroborates (0.92) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 931
• Neoliberals deploy identical denialist response templates to crises and climate change. #corroborates (0.90) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 940
• Neoliberalism wants science dissolved into market activity #expands (0.82) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 231
• Economists’ conflicted interests drive their advocacy of carbon markets #corroborates (0.80) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 928
• Neoliberalism sustains itself through double-truth pretenses of spontaneous revolt masking top-down organization #expands (0.80) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 210
• Technofeudalism bifurcates the green agenda into rival fiefs that fossil firms exploit #complicates (0.78) — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism, 630
• Neoliberal organizations coordinated their strategy through shared conferences #corroborates (0.75) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 326