Environmental movements and innovation: From alternative technology to hollow technology

Technology mediates our relations with one another and with nature. Modern environmentalism recognised this from its inception. Alternative Technology (AT) activists called for innovations that would pre-figure ecological society. This paper analyses AT advocacy of technology. Using the history of AT, two issues will be explored: 1) the relations between conceptualisations of environmental problems and the kinds of technology solution promoted; 2) the interplay and compromises environmentalists must make with other actors important in technological development. The paper concludes by reflecting upon how social actors advocate and construct technology. The AT experience highlights how technology-fixes provide only temporary solutions to problems that are, fundmentally, questions about prioritising multiple social values that are always shifting and developing. © Society for Human Ecology.