If climate technology dies, what comes next?

Humans have an innate desire to name things, but to be honest, we’re not always good at it.

Take climate technology for example: it is a category of companies and technologies that seek, in general, to reduce or reverse our impact on the climate while also helping us adapt to its increasing changes. As jargon goes, climate tech is actually not bad as it defines the focus of the sector in two words.

It’s definitely better than its predecessor, clean technology. That’s what today’s climate tech startups would have called themselves just over a decade ago. However, it was not a very good description. For starters, clean technology could just as easily have meant robotic vacuum cleaners or new household supplies. Climate technology is much easier to understand.

But climate technology is about a decade old, and humans also like to feel like they’re on the cutting edge of something new. In addition, the scope of climate technology has grown to the point where it has become somewhat impractical. Some have begun to do so Explore alternatives Over the past year or so.

Planetary health emerged as an early alternative, First coined In the medical journal The scalpel In 2014. Some investors I hugged him,Partly to address the scope creep issue. Many companies are not seeking to address carbon pollution, but are still focusing on technologies that will address humanity’s impact on the planet. It has its appeal, but most people are stuck with climate technology.

Then Donald Trump was elected for the second time. “Climate” hasn’t gone from a buzzword to a dirty word, but people are actively talking about it Distancing themselves From the term. You can try to fight it if you want, but the migration actually started before the election. In five years, we will be calling climate technology by a completely different name.

What will it be? People started throwing things at the wall to see what would stick. Planetary health is an obvious alternative; It is descriptive and has an early introduction. the American dynamism The platform has a clean energy plank, but that term is tied to one venture capital firm — a16z, whose partner Catherine Boyle coined it and runs a practice under that name — and there’s a lot of other things built into it, including defense, public safety, education, housing and more.

Frontier technology is another thing, although if you think climate technology is too broad, you will certainly not like the scale that frontier technology encompasses. Critical infrastructure? This overlaps with climate technology, but the Venn diagram is not a perfect circle. Deep tech is another technology that wraps around climate tech, but includes much more like artificial intelligence, robotics, and quantum computing.

It was the last suggestion Growth technology. It’s not my intention to throw stones, but I can’t see it spreading. It’s too general – aren’t all venture-backed startups seeking growth? – It does not capture the essence of what these startups seek. Is climate technology likely to unleash a wave of industrial growth and innovation? You don’t have to look any further than China to understand this. But I think there are better terms.

Since I’m not one to criticize without offering a solution, here’s my solution: If we really need a term, I’ll suggest the resilience technique. It’s not perfect, and maybe I’ll think of something better in the future. But for now, I think it will do the trick. It captures the essence of what climate technology is driving: to make the world and humanity more resilient.