Decarb bros believe it will all work out.
They believe IPAs are best suited for party chat about smart-grid management and EV infrastructure. They believe in trading memes on Twitter and in message groups formed around their zeal for technology as the answer to a lower-emissions future.
And the brethren, a loose band of mostly young researchers, climate technology workers, policy makers and people following online, believe in fooling themselves, at least a little. See: “Decarb bros,” a term they’ve embraced regardless of gender identity or weightlifting.
What they don’t believe in is wallowing.
“We are against doomerism,” says Billy Casagrande, who works at Scale Microgrids, a climate technology start-up. He was referring to a pessimistic view that humanity has passed the point of being able to do something about climate change.
The consensus among young people seems to be “that we’re screwed when it comes to climate,” continued the self-described decarb brother, who is 25. Mr. Casagrande, one of dozens at a monthly gathering in Brooklyn’s Williamsburg neighborhood for clean energy enthusiasts, believes there is another way.
“The solutions are there. We just need to deploy them.”
“Deploy” has become a rallying cry for decarb bros. They argue that deploying climate technology solutions — solar panels, wind turbines, heat pumps, electric cars, meat alternatives (the list goes on) — will decarbonise the economy while generating eye-popping financial returns.
“The environmental movement has traditionally been seen as altruistic,” said Kyri Baker, an assistant professor of engineering at the University of Colorado and a self-proclaimed decarb brother. “It was about giving stuff away and making sacrifices.”
The decarb brother is turning those associations upside down, rejecting sheer doom and putting faith in business innovation and government spending to fight climate change.
The bro label has traditionally been associated with negative connotations of toxic masculinity and exclusivity, said Dr. Baker. But she thinks the term is undergoing a shift and gaining gender-inclusive status. The decarb brother is “someone working on something we all care about” without adopting the sacrificial tone of traditional environmentalism, she said.
Dr. Baker sees aspects of the decarbbro culture as an antidote to the shakyness and selfishness of parts of the environmental movement. She specifically mentioned the Twitter account Embritt for decarbonizationwho shares memes connecting brother-approved activities — namely, drinking, lifting weights, and making money — to decarbonising the economy.
Dr. A competitive powerlifter, Baker loved the account’s frequent gym references. “It’s a bro-ey thing to put away your weights; it’s a bro-ey thing to stash your carbon emissions,” she said.
Just like dr. Baker found James McGinniss, the founder of David Energy, a climate technology start-up with more than $20 million in funding, that “environmental awareness just didn’t function as a story.”
For decades, saving the planet was seen as a sacrifice. Environmentalists were primarily concerned with “scarcity, consumption reduction, and population growth,” says Paul Sabin, an environmental historian at Yale.
Green technology development was also at a different stage, said Bill McKibben, the environmentalist and author. Solar panels were not yet commercially viable; the mainstreaming of electric vehicles was still decades away.
“We used to think of clean energy as ‘alternative energy’ – the whole food of energy,” said Mr. McKibben. Now that “pointing a glass plate at the sun is the cheapest way to make power on Earth,” he continued, green power products could be “the safe way.”
The change in technology has also changed what it means to work on the climate for many. In the first decade of this century, working to reduce emissions usually meant working for a government or an NGO. Today it can work for a start-up, consulting firm or financial institution.
“Things have caught up,” Mr Sabin said.
Still, Mr Sabin warned of a total reliance on technology to fight climate change. “An abundance strategy is very optimistic that we can achieve it all through technological innovation,” he said. “But we haven’t really produced that solution yet.”
The decarb bro is fearless.
As Mr. Casagrande sees it, the only way to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 is to have abundance – that is, to build things that reduce emissions that people want to buy.
Using a business mindset to scale low-carbon technology at scale means exciting consumers with products that are attractive not only because of their lower carbon footprint. They have to be faster (think high-torque electric vehicles), cheaper (think almost free electricity from solar panels), or cooler (that’s a bit subjective).
The decarb bro philosophy – “the carrot, not the stick” – has at least one fan in Washington. Jigar Shah is the director of the Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office, which provides debt financing for energy projects. He regularly interacts with the Bros for Decarbonization Twitter account, replying to the tweets and emphasizing the pro-tech, pro-growth philosophy.
“The modern environmental movement must accelerate climate solutions through technology,” said Mr. Shah in an interview. “Bros for Decarb shows that perseverance” and “focusing on the positive” matter in achieving that goal.
Even talking about buying cars and other (guilt-free) goods is a real change in what environmentalism looks like, said Dr. Baker. In the past, environmental awareness meant making your car smaller or buying less stuff. That is no longer the case.
“The Nissan Leaf – that’s not a cool car,” she said. “But you get into a Tesla – that thing is indescribable.”
And decarb bros can discover people hire people.
More than $64 billion in new funding was announced last year for companies investing in climate start-ups, according to the Climate Tech VC newsletter. Excitement over climate technology continued despite recession fears.
The decarb brother’s techno-optimistic, anti-doom-and-gloom ethos runs through the climate tech ecosystem, said Mr. McGinniss, the start-up’s founder. According to him, climate technology embraces optimism: “There are great solutions.”
Climate technology is “bright, it’s shiny, it’s new, it screams opportunity,” said Naya Shim, a climate technology fellowship program associate. “It’s a goldmine.”
According to Ms. Shim, there is also a social urgency to emphasize the economic benefits of the climate movement. While she doesn’t consider herself a decarb bro, she has noticed the impact of the decarb bro philosophy and message of economic opportunity on her peers.
People used to want to work in crypto or take high-paying jobs at software companies that sell ads. Now Ms. Shim is encouraged to see more of her friends – even her “finance bro” friends – wanting to work in climate.
“The next big thing is the planet,” she said. “Without that, there are no NFTs.”
Aligning profit incentives with doing good for the world is part of what sets the decarb bro apart from other bros, said Sara Hastings-Simon, a scientist, decarb bro enthusiast and craft beer aficionado. The decarb brother is “an enlightened bro for the climate,” she said.
Isaias Hernandez, an environmental educator and founder of the Instagram account queerbrownvegan, isn’t so sure. “We cannot see the ecological crisis as a way to make a profit,” he said. That incentive structure, he fears, opens the doors to greenwashing and inequality.
“When you talk to climate tech brethren, they’re very obsessed with one solution as all-important,” he said.
Instead, Mr. Hernandez that his audience is thinking about approaching climate change through grassroots organization. “When we rely on big technocratic solutions to save our communities, the communities are often not really involved,” he said.
Mr. Hernandez is not alone in critically examining the role of business in the fight against climate change. The degrowth movement, part of the environmental movement, believes that economic growth no longer benefits humanity and that combating climate change requires abandoning the focus on gross domestic product.
Still, in the eyes of the decarb brother, money is a powerful motivator for solving the planetary crisis. “There are significant economic opportunities,” Mr Casagrande said. “I don’t think people should feel guilty about that.”
