Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
3
Cultural and contested
understandings of science
and sustainability
Aims
This chapter will explore the contested nature of science in the sustainable development
process. Key illustrations will be drawn from the debates and controversies over
climate change and genetic modification. The cultural and sometimes national context
of these debates are also important as the discussion of sustainability in Russia
demonstrates. The concept of risk, the precautionary principle and the theory of
reflexive modernization will also be examined. The idea that sustainability is not a
scientific concept as such, although it is, and should be informed by it is an underlying
assumption of this chapter, even though in practice sustainability, and perhaps science
too, is also a political act - but this, as with so much is a matter for dialogue and
discussion.
From dialogue to learning: 'sustainability' as a heuristic
Professor John Robinson's perceptive commentary on sustainable development is
concerned with the inherent contradictions within the concept. There is a focus on
growth
and
development
on the one hand, much appreciated by governments and
business, and ecological sustainability on the other, a position taken by many NGOs,
academic environmentalists and activists. Many critics consequently view the concept
as being inherently contradictory and incapable of being effectively operationalized.
Others have noted in response that there is a resilient compatibility within the concept
and practice of sustainable development, which focuses on the ideas of freedom, of
fulfilment, of being and securing what is truly valuable - the freedom to achieve,
to effect solidarity with others, to develop capabilities and alternatives, and to live
justly and meaningfully (Verburg and Wiegel, 1997; Sen, 1999; Stefanovic, 2000).
In 'Sustainable development: Exploring the ethics of
Our Common Future
', Langhelle
(1999) argues that the importance of economic growth has been overemphasized at
the expense of the broadly ethical concerns of human togetherness, social justice,
respect for ecological limits, and the eradication of global poverty and inequality.
Social justice has much to do with the satisfaction of human needs, of securing equal
opportunity between and within generations, global partnership and co-operation.
It is this that defines the idea of development within sustainable development.
'Sustainable development' does not endorse 'calculative thinking' or the common
managerialist desire to obsessively devise quantitative outputs, performance indi-
cators and actions, although none of this is completely excluded. Neither is the
preference for the term 'sustainability' (goal) to be used more readily than 'sustainable
