ABSTRACT
In this final chapter, philosopher Andrew Feenberg provides a hopeful view of “civilizational change” that relates several of the themes that have appeared in other chapters. He first rejects the idea, also rejected by Cole et al. in Chapter 12, that environmentalism is a blunt trade-off between industrial prosperity and de-industrialization—a return to adverse premodern conditions. Rather, Feenberg provides historical cases of technological change that demonstrate how Western societies have consistently made life-enhancing choices that trump ideological devotion to pure economic efficiency. His proposal is, then, a third way forward to global eco-technical prosperity that includes the commitment to social equity set out by Oden in Chapter 2.
