Toward a Conceptual Framework for Climate Action: Learning from the Ecomodernist Debate

The challenge of addressing climate change is not merely technical or political, but a crisis of orientation. As the consequences of a warming planet grow increasingly clear, a core question is not simply "what" to do, but how to reconcile the many approaches and perspectives of a deeply concerned and fragmented humanity. This paper takes the debate surrounding An Ecomodernist Manifesto (2015) as a window into this problem, reading the exchange between the manifesto's techno-optimist vision and its degrowth critics as symptomatic of a broader pathology in climate discourse: fragmentation, ideological entrenchment, and the treatment of other perspectives as obstacles rather than interlocutors. Drawing on the conceptual framework of the Institute for Studies in Global Prosperity, a research organization inspired by the Bahá'í Faith, the paper takes initial steps toward articulating a "coherent yet evolving" orientation capable of guiding diverse forms of action toward shared ends.