Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
and debate by suggesting that climate change and disturbance is so severe that within
a few decades the Arctic will be open sea and that the only way for human intervention
to be effective is for the developing world, particularly China and India, to forgo
carbon-based economic development. In the developed world there needs to be a
fundamental change in energy generation and policy. The world's optimum popula-
tion is probably in the region of half to one billion people. This figure would allow
humans to live in diverse ways without harming Gaia. If the population exceeds
this, it is likely that 'in the end, as always, Gaia will do the culling and eliminate
those that break her rules' (Lovelock, 2006: 141). Lovelock is also a firm advocate
of clean nuclear power. Nothing else, he argues, is likely to do the job of powering
the global economy.
The Schumacher College scholar Stephan Harding (2006) has further developed
Gaia theory, focusing on the need to develop a holistic understanding and practice
of science and, through this, an empathic relationship with the Earth itself. Harding
writes of one simple rule that has emerged from over twenty years of Gaian research:
any organism destabilizing Gaia will experience feedbacks that will reduce its numbers.
There are clear lessons for humans here. We cannot ultimately harm Gaia; we may
destroy many species, including our own, but we cannot destroy Gaia. It will always
return, re-emerge, but nonetheless, by promoting nature-destroying, climate-warming
economic growth, we could initiate catastrophic Gaian feedbacks that will eliminate
many future possibilities.
Ecological modernization
Ecological modernization (EM) entered the policy discourse some time in the 1980s,
initially to describe technological developments with environmentally beneficial
outcomes - chlorine-free bleaching of pulp for paper, more fuel-efficient cars, clean
nuclear energy, and so on - fully compatible with Lovelock's Gaia theory. A little
later there emerged four ecological modernization strategies, two that were remedial
(compensation and environmental restoration; technical pollution control) and two
that were preventative or anticipatory (environmentally friendly technical innovation;
structural change). EM became seen primarily as a way of reducing costs and
improving business competitiveness rather than articulating any major changes in
political, public or corporate values. In the 1990s EM took on a more radical
ambience, with references to ecological emancipation and the emergence of a new
belief system, prefiguring systemic change and a broad transformation of social
relations. However, there remain a few unresolved tensions, as Christoff (1996)
identified. These include:
•
Is EM economistic or ecological?
•
National or international?
•
Is there just one hegemonic path to modernization or are there multiple
possibilities?
•
Technocratic or democratic? (Should citizens participate in the planning process
or should it be left simply to the 'experts'?)
Christoff also identifies weak and strong versions of EM:
