Susan Baker. Cardiff School Social Sciences Sustainable Places Research Institute Cardiff University

Transcription

1 Susan Baker Cardiff School Social Sciences Sustainable Places Research Institute Cardiff University 1

2 Global environmental change Societal failure to respond 2

3 Knowledge and the Logic of Action 3

4 Reduction in scientific Overly technical presentation uncertainty Enhanced knowledge Limited public understanding Better science: policy interface Improved communication Marginalisation of doubters y Reluctance to sacrifice for uncertain & distant gains Message: GEC is problem for others /future Positive Negative 4

5 Problem as Instrumental Managerial Market Institutional Governance Problem as Moral Ecological Ethical Not necessarily compatible Each with different logics of action 5

6 Climate change adaptation Protect ecosystem services Improve management Enhance planning Boost related business strategies Progress technologies Advance technical specifications in product design Problem Logic of Action 6

7 Failure to internalise externalities Problem Quantify costs & benefits Establish market Utilise market instruments Launch business solutions Privatisation or/and public: private partnerships Logic of Action 7

8 Typical collective action problem Weak institutional structures & processes Lack of integration Incentivise collective action Ensure institutions facilitate opportunities Enhance institutional capacity Legitimise & democratise institutional arrangements Mainstream GEC Problem Logic of Action 8

9 Doing and the Locus of Action 9

10 International governance regimes States, or regional authorities Economic interests Social actors Individuals 10

11 Different competence to act Different capacity to act Different tools for actions Different visions of actions Operated in nested hierarchies Power unequally shared Difference across Scale Entanglement 11

12 Part of legitimate business of government Array of international, EU, national regimes, laws, institutions, policies and programmes Sophisticated monitoring and evaluation 12

13 Ecological Modernisation Internalised pollution/resource costs into production Gained markets from green products Corporate Social/Environmental i l Responsibility 13

14 Consumer behaviour Information campaigns Reduce, recycle, repair 3R Eco-labelling [Informed choice] Locus of Action Examples 14

15 Different understandings of problem result in different calls to action 15

16 Ignores relationship & value given to nature Has seductive appeal Does not address basic ecological contradiction in capitalism Regards growth as part of solution Despite several decades of action, ecological situation getting worse Instrumental engagement A form of moral nihilism? A moral hazard? 16

17 Thinking Differently to Act Differently 17

18 Resource depletion Breaches of planetary absorptive capacity Disruption of ecosystem functions and services As planetary boundaries are put under stress so too are social bonds, relations & thresholds Reduce growth/consumption Find safe operating space for humanity Develop new politics and economics of limits Problem Logic of Action 18

19 Preoccupation with individual gain Lack of common good Traditional ethics ignores: Take account of inter and intra- generational equity Revalue our place in nature Allow nature value in and of itself Reduce consumption in West Collaborative consumption [swopping, sharing, bartering] Co-production [growing own food] Embrace life style changes Efficient living Different living Sufficient living Spatial Temporal Engage in social innovation Voluntary simplicity Transition towns Fair trade Problem Logic of Action 19

20 Focus: humans and their other regarding traits of character Priority: interpersonal concerns Scope and object of virtue narrowed Human virtue seen in moralistic terms Focus: well lived life characteristics & behaviours good person will seek to achieve Underpinned by broader conception of common good Development of environmentally conscious character, but in community Wider context: virtue as embedded in & inseparable from enabling conditions Traditional Morality Environment Virtue Ethics 20

21 We are seduced by our Move from instrumental busy actions and calls reasoning to ethical reasoning for more such action Shift from negative Instrumental t argumentation: what is reasoning: Through wrong with knowledge, this the other markets, governance, institutions to positive possibility is blocked thinking about the future (The Question Concerning Technology, Martin Heidegger Develop a virtue ethics, To act for a sustainable to underscore a new future requires more Planetary Boundary Economy than being a busy fool Why we Don t Act Starting to Act 21

22 22