Saving the world from bad ideas: the continuing failure of food ecomodernism

Chris Smaje · 30 Jun 2026 · chrissmaje.com ↗

7 korrents from this piece · 1 of them a turn

Chris Smaje did not write this page.

Every claim below was made in this piece, quoted word for word and numbered in the order the piece makes them, so you can read it there rather than take our word for it. The sentence above each quote is our reading of the claim, not their wording. Each quote was checked against a stored copy of the page at build time; where the two differ, the quote is the fact.

Our reading
"Food from thin air" is not from thin air: it runs on water, minerals, ammonia and industrial plant.

Their wordsAnother is that it isn’t ‘food from thin air’ as is often claimed – as well as the high energy use, it’s food from a lot of tap water, minerals, ammonia and industrial infrastructure.

Interesting
Our reading
Factory-made bacterial protein cannot feed the world, because meeting humanity's protein needs that way would take more electricity than the planet generates from renewables.

Their wordsTo meet the global population’s protein needs through factory-produced bacterial protein in 2024 would have used more than the total global electricity generated using renewable (hydro, photovoltaic and wind) energy

Interesting
Our reading
Farming is the one large sector still powered directly by free sunlight, and replacing it with factory food would spend the renewable electricity every other sector needs.

Their wordsAgriculture is the only major sector that at present is significantly energised directly by zero cost and zero carbon sunlight.

Interesting
Our reading
A future of constrained energy will need more people working the land, and that is not the same as going back to the past.

Their wordsbut I do think that in a future of probable energy constraint there will be a need for a more peopled agriculture, with populations spreading out to tap diffuse solar energy input.

Interesting
Our reading
Today's level of city living depends on cheap fossil fuels and is unlikely to survive without them.

Their wordsHowever, in our non-ideal biophysical reality, present levels of urbanism are unlikely to be sustainable without cheap fossil fuels, and the human cost of that could be horrific unless we address it urgently.

Interesting
Our reading
Efficiency is the wrong measure of a food system; what matters is what it costs at a level of energy and materials that can be sustained.

Their wordsa more relevant metric in the long term is the cost, not the efficiency, of food production methods at sustainable levels of energetic and material throughput.

Interesting
Our reading
Ecomodernism is concerned with secondary managerial goals like efficiency and says nothing to the mysteries and passions that animate a life.

Recalls holdingIn this sense, I think I was wrong to imply in Saying NO… that ecomodernism focuses on secondary managerialist goals like the efficiency of feedlots without speaking to the mysteries and passions of what animates life.

Interesting