Technology will save us. Won’t it? (2)

Following on from my previous post about simplistic technological fixes, dk.au at LP found a similar limitation in the debate about an Australian emissions trading system:

We also need to start discussing energy demands as social things, rather than simply a matter of correct pricing or installing a well timed deus ex machina [Ed: improbable solution to an intractable problem], if we’re going to make any real headway on climate change. As we point out, quoting Nicholas Stern and Cameron Hepburn, ‘[c]limate change policy … raises questions that are fundamentally and inescapably ethical’

He expands on this argument in a more academic article here.