ABSTRACT
Technologies associated with energy have had some of the most significant environmental impacts with the most alarming being climate breakdown arising from widespread use of carbon-based fuels. This chapter examines four key metaphors of technological change. The first, technological fix, gives primacy to technology as the decisive factor in the solution of society’s problems and encourages a techno-optimism that distracts attention from the wider societal consequences of its use. The other metaphors – technological determinism, technological dialogue, and technological momentum – all better reflect the social embeddedness of technological change. This occurs as the development of a new technology acquires social acceptance slowly at first but then is taken up more widely as its adoption proceeds dynamically alongside social change. The metaphor of technological momentum, therefore, recognises technologies not as discrete artefacts, but as parts of interconnected complex systems. The chapter highlights how this metaphor enables a deeper engagement with the dynamic unfolding of new technologies, including the potential unintended consequences that they bring.
