Tinkering Toward Salvation: The Secular Eschatology of Ecomodernism

​​It has become increasingly alluring to refer to the future of unabated climate change as a climate crisis, an apocalypse. In reaction to the rise of 'climate doomerism,' a peculiar faction has emerged within ecological discourse: ecomodernism. Ecomodernists argue that the limitlessness of human potential opens up a new world of possibility, wherein humanity is completely untethered from the material limits of our planet and energy is cheap, clean, and abundant for all. Drawing from queer ecology, decolonial thought, and critical secularism studies, this paper posits that the transcendent view of humanity lauded by ecomodernists represents the dominant secular eschatology of environmental thought. Engaging the work of Delf Rothe, Chris Methmann, and Ben Jones, I outline the secular eschatological views of ecomodernists and analyze the particular role of technology in ecomodernism. For ecomodernists, technology is the medium of salvation and liberation from human material finitude.