AI fetishism and perverse climate disavowal
Why denying destructiveness facilitates our ecological collapse
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12175474 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Alexander M Stoner (0000-0002-5892-8245, Northern Michigan University, Marquette, USA, corresponding author), Anthony J Knowles (0009-0009-3256-1498, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, USA) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Publication date | 2025-11-02 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Critical Sociology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0896-9205 • E-ISSN: 1569-1632 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/08969205251383421 |
| OpenAlex | W4415781971 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 39 |
As ecological crises intensify, scholars and activists increasingly question the sustainability of economic growth. Yet, the dominant growth-oriented paradigm remains foundational to advanced capitalist societies and cannot be altered without significant social disruption. The resulting tension between ecological limits and the imperative for continuous growth generates “climate anxiety.” This article advances the concept of perverse climate disavowal : a mode of climate denial that acknowledges climate threats while maintaining faith in the illusion of infinite economic expansion. This disavowal functions as a psychological defense mechanism, enabling individuals and institutions to avoid confronting structural contradictions. The article examines the increasing use of artificial intelligence to address climate change as a key expression of this phenomenon. A directed qualitative content analysis was conducted on USA news articles (2020–2024) concerning AI and climate change. A complete description of the methodology, including rank order frequency of concept codes and representative quotes, is included
Capitalism · Climate change · Denial · Ecological crisis · Environmental sociology · Fetishism · Order (exchange · Political economy of climate change · Sustainability · Climate Change Communication and Perception · Earth Systems and Cosmic Evolution · Innovation, Sustainability, Human-Machine Systems
Transitional Subjects
The Hegemony of Growth
Psychological Roots of the Climate Crisis
Time, Labor, and Social Domination
Climate anxiety
Is green growth happening? An empirical analysis of achieved versus Paris-compliant CO2–GDP decoupling in high-income countries
How social science is impossible without critical theory
A Social Ecology of Capital
Intellectual and Manual Labour
Climate anxiety
Living in Denial
Reconceptualizing Climate Change Denial
Loss and Climate Change
Making sense of the spectrum of climate denial
What is ‘business as usual’? Towards a theory of cumulative sociomaterial change
Are We Driven? Critical Theory and Psychoanalysis Reconsidered
Is artificial intelligence greening global supply chains? Exposing the political economy of environmental costs
Safeguarding livelihoods against reductions in economic output
Black boxes, not green
Ideological obstacles to effective climate policy
Dialectic of Enlightenment
Revisiting Marcuse's Technological Rationality
Technology as Fetish
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2026 - 2026 (1) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |