Transcript Politics of Sustainable Development

The Quest for Green Knowledge
Mixing Science and Politics in
Environmental Governance
Andrew Jamison
A Story of Hubris
”...impious disregard of the limits
governing human action in an orderly
universe. It is the sin to which the
great and gifted are most susceptible,
and in Greek tragedy it is usually the
hero's tragic flaw.”
(Encyclopedia Britannica)
For example:
Al Gore
“The climate crisis is not a political
issue, it is a moral and spiritual
challenge to all of humanity. It is also
our greatest opportunity to lift global
consciousness to a higher level.”
from Al Gore’s Nobel acceptance speech
...and Hybrids
”offspring of parents that differ in genetically
determined traits” (Encyclopedia Britannica)
or, more colorfully:
”By the late twentieth century, our time, a mythic
time, we are all chimeras, theorized and
fabricated hybrids of machine and organism...”
(Donna Haraway)
For example?
“California is mobilizing technologically, financially and
politically to fight global warming change….What we are
doing is changing the dynamic, preparing the way, and
encouraging the future.”
Arnold Schwarzenegger at the UN
...versus (Habit)us
”...a set of dispositions which generates
practices and perceptions. The habitus is the
result of a long process of inculcation, beginning
in early childhood, which becomes a ’second
sense’ or a second nature.”
(Randal Johnson on Pierre Bourdieu)
For example: Bjørn Lomborg
“it seems very unrealistic and conservative to assume that
we will not adapt to rising temperatures throughout the 21st
century.“
from Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist’s Guide to Global Warming
The Making of Green Knowledge
Awakening: 1960s
 Public
education, criticizing (big) science
Organization: 1970-1980s
 Social
movements, appropriate technology
Normalization: 1990s
 Sustainable
development, green business
Globalization: 2000s Dealing
with climate change – and the skeptics!
From the Cognitive Praxis of
Environmental Movements

Cosmological dimension:
social ecology, ”limits to growth”

Technological dimension:
appropriateness, ”radical technology”

Organizational dimension:
participatory research, ”citizen science”
...to Contending Regimes of
Environmental Governance
Green Business
(Hubris)
Skepticism
(Habitus)
key actors
experts
entrepreneurs
change agents
forms of
action
research and
development
business as usual
exemplary
mobilization
organizational (multi)disciplinary
form
teams
transnational
actor-networks
cooperative
alliances
type of
knowledge
subjective,
constructive
integrative,
situated
specialized,
objective
Green Knowledge
(Hybrids)
From a social movement...
Tvindmøllen
1977-1978
...to Green Business
The Toyota Prius
VESTAS,
the Danish
wind energy
company
Changing Contexts of
Knowledge Making
Mode 1
“Little Science”
Before WWII
Mode 1½
“Big Science”
1940s-1970s
Mode 2
“Technoscience”
1980s-
Type of
Knowledge
disciplinary
multidisciplinary
transdisciplinary
Organizational form
individuals and
research groups
R&D departments
and institutes
ad hoc projects and
networks
Dominant
values
academic
bureaucratic
commercial
From Little Science to Big Science

change in size and scale

mission orientation, external control

university-government collaboration

bureaucratic norm, or value system

new role for the state: ”science policy”

the emergence of environmentalism
Big Science as Hubris...
...and as Habitus
The Hybrid Imagination: Lewis Mumford (1895-1990)
”The whole industrial world – and
instrumentalism is only its highest
conscious expression - has taken
values for granted...”
The Hybrid Imagination: Rachel Carson (1907-64)
”The road we have long been
traveling is deceptively easy, a
smooth superhighway on which
we progress with great speed,
but at its end lies disaster.”
From Big Science to Technoscience

change in range and scope

market orientation, global reach

university-industry collaboration

entrepreneurial norm or value system

the state as strategist: innovation policy

the emergence of green business
The Emergence of Green Business
natural capitalism
industrial ecology
renewable energy
ecological
modernization
sustainable
development
ecoefficiency
pollution prevention,
cleaner technologies
environmental
economics and policy
pollution control,
”end-of pipe”
Environmental awareness, or consciousness
The Discourse of Ecological Modernization
”The fundamental assumption [is] that
economic growth and the resolution of
ecological problems can, in principle, be
reconciled…”
Maarten Hajer, The Politics of Environmental Discourse, 1995
Green Business as Cognitive Praxis
From ”movement”…
to ”institutions”
appropriate technology
green products
organizational alliances
competing firms
ecological society
sustainable growth
public education
popularization/marketing
integrating knowledge
seeking market niches
movement intellectuals
green salesmen
Science and Green Business

Environmental problems seen primarily as providing new
opportunities for scientists and engineers

A multidisciplinary, big science model of research (IPCC) and a linear
model of innovation

A tendency toward hubris: the myth of science-based progress and
the technical fix

A continuing belief in the distinterested objectivity of science, and
on a rational, science-based politics
The Anti-Environmentalist Backlash

an outgrowth of neo-conservatism and neo-nationalism

supported financially by ”big oil” and agro-industry

skeptical about importance of environmental problems

an organized opposition to green business

technoscience’s nemesis: the entrepreneurial academic
Skeptical Environmentalism, a la Lomborg

mode 2, or socially robust knowledge:
the ”context speaks back” (in this case, the Danish habitus)

the political manipulation of facts and numbers

the academic goes to market – and the media

commercial epistemic criteria:
”more environment for the money” (cost-benefit analysis)
Transdisciplinarity, or ”mode 2”
”Knowledge which emerges from a particular
context of application with its own distinct
theoretical structures, research methods and
modes of practice but which may not be
locatable on the prevailing disciplinary map.”
Michael Gibbons et al, The New Production of Knowledge (1994:168)
The Need for a ”Mode 3”, or
Change-Oriented Research

Problem-driven, rather than solution-driven

Intervention in ongoing political process

Active, rather than explanatory ambition

Narrative form of presentation, ”telling stories”

Participatory, dialogue methods (e.g. focus groups)

Engagement, or involvement in what is studied
...and a Hybrid Imagination

At the discursive, or macro level:


At the institutional, or meso level


connecting environmentalism and global justice
creating contexts, or sites for collective learning
At the practitioner, or micro level

combining different forms of knowledge and action
For example:
Vandana Shiva
Vandana Shiva’s Hybrid Imagination
On the discursive level –
ecofeminism, public accountability, ”earth democracy”
On the institutional level organic agriculture, political ecology, global justice
On the personal level –
rhetorical knowledge, advocacy research, public science
Or, in the words of Peter Garrett,
Australia’s new Environment Minister
Out where the river broke
The bloodwood and the desert oak
Holden wrecks and boiling diesels
Steam in forty five degrees
The time has come, to say fair's fair
To pay the rent, to pay our share
The time has come, a fact's a fact
It belongs to them, let's give it back
How can we dance when our earth is turning
How do we sleep while our beds are burning
Four wheels scare the cockatoos
From Kintore East to Yuendemu
The western desert lives and breathes
In forty five degrees
In other words (and please sing along):
We need to change our ways
We need to change our ways
And how we spend our days,
Stop taking so much from the earth
And learn what life is really worth.
We've taken more than we should
And we've done less than we could,
We've taken chances with our fate
Oh, let us hope it's not too late.
We need to change our minds
Before the world unwinds,
Learn of the patterns and the flows,
From where life comes and where it goes.
We need to change our schools
And rearrange our tools,
Teach our children how to share
And teach each other how to care.