Environmental Engineering Reference
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society while offering the opportunity to radically rethink new forms and values. It
addresses qualitative changes to the way people live their lives and the deep-seated
processes that govern our personal selves and relationships with nature. Utopias are,
or must be, essentially libertarian, bioregional and ecological to warrant the name:
We must 'phase out' our formless urban agglomerations into eco-communities
that are scaled to human dimensions, sensitively tailored in size, population,
needs and architecture to the specific ecosystems in which they are to be located.
We must use modern technics to replace our factories, agribusiness enterprises
and mines with new, human-scaled ecotechnologies that deploy sun, wind,
streams, recycled wastes and vegetation to create a comprehensible people's
technology. We must replace the state institutions based on professional violence
with social institutions based on mutual aid and human solidarity.
(Bookchin, 1980: 284-5)
In a wide-ranging discussion, de Geus (1999) identifies eight metaphors found in
eco-utopian writing that facilitate the envisioning of a sustainable society:
Utopia as a kaleidoscope : providing an array of philosophical reflections on the
relationship between humanity and nature, the economy and ecology, consumer
materialism and environmental degradation.
Utopia as coloured glasses : providing alternative interpretative frameworks and
reference points by which we can recognize processes that degrade the quality
of living and environment.
Utopia as a mirror : providing a mirror to society showing up injustices and
short-comings that may have become invisible in the living of our day-to-day
lives, such as increased consumption, road transport, bland design, draughty
housing, air and water pollution.
Utopia as a CT-scan : providing an analysis of how far social and environmental
problems are rooted in the current organization and structure of society, political
governance and the economy.
Utopia as an interactive medium : providing stimulus to engage in debate and
discussion about desirable futures, potential barriers and means by which an
ideal may be realized.
Utopia as a microscope : providing an opportunity to envisage how future scenarios
could have consequences for the minutiae of social life, of conduct, of energy
use and of forms of pro-environmental behaviour.
Utopia as a telescope : providing a detailed, credible and broadly encompassing
model of social, political and economic organization making for a clean and
ecologically balanced society.
Utopia as a magic lantern : providing vivid graphic and verbal images of possible
futures.
For Pepper (2005), utopian thinking is not confined to radical environmentalism,
but can also be readily found in the statements, theories, expectations and reformist
policies of environmental modernizers. He suggests that practical ecological reforms
usually associated with ecological modernization are frequently found in utopian
writings if they are read carefully. Political scientist Ruth Levitas (2010: 540) argues
 
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