Abstract

Rotenberg's technology theory, echoing McLuhan's, posits technology as extensions of human desires. Climate change emerges as a technological crisis not due to its solvability through technology, but because advanced civilizations have often neglected the development of adaptive positive cultural technologies. Positive cultural technologies extend from "higher needs" in the Maslowian pyramid, exemplified by community-inspired data visualization like WEB. Dubois' work for Black community empowerment, Dr. Bullard's safety-focused mapping in Houston, and community-led renewable energy initiatives such as Dena Montage's Energie rich project, fostering small communities' self-actualization. Reflecting on environmental data usage for climate justice, the essay outlines five conditions for communities to effectively leverage such data. Additionally, it explores current and potential applications of AI, blockchain, augmented reality and other emerging technologies for climate justice. Finally, two major harmful cultural technologies act as barriers to climate and environmental justice: 1) the colonial-capitalist gravity, these forces perpetuating a logic of resource exploitation in society and 2) digital mind control, which allows people with control on digital media to energize racial division egos and manufacture consent for oppressive policies. Countering these necessitates a paradigm shift towards deconstructing the "monoculture of the global village" and embracing indigenous and multicultural narratives as standards.