Green Dreams

Electric cars, green AI, carbon capture, clean tech - everywhere we turn, we’re told technology will save the planet. Green Dreams challenges this comforting story. It examines green techno-optimism, its messaging and claims, and looks at how it plays out across banks, governments, energy corporations, Big Tech, and even Hollywood. It shows how green techno-optimism—the belief that innovation alone can deliver a sustainable future—has become one of the most powerful and misleading ideas of our time. Tracing its roots from Enlightenment progress myths to Silicon Valley manifestos, Big Tech sustainability reports, and Hollywood’s eco-fantasies, Green Dreams reveals why greener machines so often reinforce the problems they seek to solve. Clear-eyed, provocative, and accessible, Green Dreams argues that green technology can play a role in climate action only if we confront the political, economic, and cultural barriers standing in the way of real change. Without systemic transformation, the green dream is a dangerous illusion. Foregrounding the gap between green techno-optimism and our endlessly growth-oriented system and ever-warming planet, it shows how and why technology cannot save the world.