3. Pollution And Risk Flashcards
1
Q
What are some of the definitions of pollution?
A
- Unprecedented waste released into common areas
- Natural communities harmed by man-made matter
- Sustaining many people which leads to threat of running out of resources
- Intense industrial production that uses resources
- Pollution is a matter of scale
2
Q
What view of pollution did Mary Douglas take?
A
- Anthropological - pollution is a taboo to regulate society
- Creates boundaries between what is and is not acceptable
- Pollution is matter in a place that it should not be
- Suggests any environmental problem can be classed as pollution as they bring about disorder by reorganisation
3
Q
What is risk and how does it relate to climate change and pollution?
A
- Risk is the probability of physical harm caused by something that has an unknown effect
- Making efforts to halt climate change could reduce risk, but increase poverty in developing countries (Shaeffer, 2005)
- Divesting in fossil fuels would halt development and reduction of use of artificial fertilisers would create hunger (Shaeffer, 2005)
- Modern environmental thinking is based in risk
4
Q
What is reflexive modernity?
A
- Modernity is solving problems using technology in order to improve well-being
- Reflexive modernity is the solving of problems created by the solutions generated by modernity
5
Q
What new problems are posed by modern day risk?
A
- Past risk is due to lack of technology
- Today’s risk due to overproduction
- Beck: risks are a product of increasing modernisation
6
Q
How does Beck argue that modern risk is a political issue?
A
- Risks are invisible and can do irreversible harm
- They are explained by science and so are inaccessible to laypeople
- Affect rich and poor and have a boomerang effect
- Produce international inequality
- Modern risks may be immaterial or psychological
7
Q
What are the three key aspects of modern risk, and why do these make them dangerous?
A
- Omnipresent - effects are global
- Consequences are only hypothetical and cannot be measured
- Non-compensatable - cannot return to previous conditions
- Governments don’t want to threaten voters’ quality of life with measures to combat risks that may never come to fruition (Matten, 2004)
8
Q
What is insurance and why is it impossible to apply to modern risk?
A
- The ability of institutions to cope with self-imposed consequences of modernisation
- Hard to build against GMO, nuclear disaster etc.
- New risks increase in connected systems, and today’s world is ip unavoidably connected
- Can’t insure against risks that are unknown eg. 2011 earthquake that led to Fukushima explosion
- The probability of risk is almost zero, but the damage may be infinite (Pascal’s Wager), so political reform and new participants needed (Matten, 2004)
9
Q
Summarise modern risk.
A
- Dependent on individual as they choose to act
- Limited scope for destruction due to spacial and temporal constraints
- Can roughly estimate destruction levels
- Individual responsibility
10
Q
Summarise reflexive modernity in risk society.
A
- Lifestyles are imposed on people so risk does not depend on the individual
- There is possibility of unlimited accidents
- Impossible to estimate destruction levels
- Organised irresponsibility - diffusion of responsibility
11
Q
How to the general public perceive risks?
A
- Via risk perception ie. their judgement of a risk
- More likely to accept voluntary risks
- More concerned with short term
- Current risk is too high
- Greater potential benefit increases tolerance for risk
- People don’t want a fair share of risk, but no risk at all (Matten, 2004)
12
Q
What values are present in environmentalism?
A
- Several high profile events triggered it in 1960s
- Idea that success of modern world has brought it down
- Lowe & Goyder (1983) - challenges assumptions about progress
- More power used to gain natural resources for profit
- Society dictates this must continue
