Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
This paper is organised into five further sections. First of all, I shall sketch what I
refer to as rationality of environmental management by drawing on Ecological
Modernisation Theory, which aims at describing and explaining ecological mod-
ernisation as policy and practice. Afterwards I turn to the case which provides the
empirical ground for questioning the political implications of using specific forms
of knowledge in environmental management practices. After the analysis the arti-
cle presents a brief theoretical excursion into ways out of the problems analysed
and, thus, thinking possibilities of utopia. Finally you will find concluding re-
marks to emphasise the key contradiction in our case.
18.2 Rationality within Environmental Management
The fundamental claim of the ecological modernisation (EM) thesis is that to
reach a balanced relationship between industrialised societies and their environ-
ment, these societies need to engage with nature
more technoscientifically and in
ways more mediated by the market economy
. Buttel (2000, p. 61) summarises:
“An ecological modernization perspective hypothesizes that while the most challenging
environmental problems of this century and the next have (or will have) been caused by
modernization and industrialization, their solutions must necessary lie in more - rather
than less - modernization and 'superindustrialization'.”
Thus, a better world is envisioned as coming about through making the status quo
compatible with environmental needs by continuing the social and economic tra-
jectory, with more of the practices
8
already occurring. The EM thesis construes the
global environmental crisis as being transcended (Clark and York 2005, p. 410).
The EM discourse postulates innovations
9
which are ecologically less detrimental
or even benign both for the realm of material technology as well as social institu-
tions. From a technoscience point of view there is no near end to ecological inno-
vations: Efficiencies are thought to be easily calculable. Technoscientific progress
constantly produces knowledge about eco-efficiency and creates artefacts which
are seen as less polluting or even contributing to the environment
10
. For example,
8
For example they suggest the continuation of developing 'sustainable technologies'
(which everything can be called, i.e. storing recovered carbon dioxide emissions under
pressure in the earth (sequestration)).
9
I use the concept innovation without being familiar with innovation theory. By using 'in-
novation' I refer to changes which can be seen as stable, relative to the context they are
in.
10
Cf. Buttel (2000, p. 63). Elaborated versions of this kind of technoscience progress litera-
ture are limited to life cycle assessments. They tend not to include critical postmodernist
contestations such as developed within the field of Science and Technology Studies and
Critical Realism, which question the progress ideology (cf. Haraway 1991; Potter and
López 2001).
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