Modernity and the Environment

Question 1

Basic characteristics of modernity (6 key words/phrases)

Answer 1

Capitalism, nation-states, liberal democracy, unequal wealth, belief in progress through human agency and reason, environmental degradation

Question 2

Definition: Ecomodernism

Answer 2

Industralization is to blame for environmental degradation, but modernity can be greened and made sustainable through innovation

Question 3

Definition: Green Keynesianism

Answer 3

Capitalism is to blame for environmental degradation, but capitalism can be greened by interventions by the state

Question 4

Ecomodernism and Green Keynesianism have in common that they think

Answer 4

Modernity is simultanously the problem and the solution of environmental degradation

Question 5

What is ecomodernism?

Answer 5

Environmental harm has been caused by industrialization which is integral to modernity -> we must green the industry via technological innovation to avoid leaving the path of modernity

Question 6

Ecomodernism: “super-industrialization”

Answer 6

A new and higher state of human development, drawing on technological power to make life better for people and stabilize the environment, creating a “great Anthropocene”

Question 7

Ecomodernism: risk society

Answer 7

A new phase in modernization with a break with traditional social arrangements and a quest to dominate nature

Question 8

Ecomodernism: why is the transition to a risk society not guaranteed (Beck)?

Answer 8

Because a risk society allocates bads and manages internal, self-generated threats, it can provoke anti-modern reactions and people can see less reason to organize society around modernity

Question 9

When did ecomodernism emerge?

Answer 9

In the 1980s with a recognition of the structural character of environmental concerns, but the belief that existing institutions could internalize the environmental challenges, and the pursuit of economic growth could be compatible with the solution of environmental problems

Question 10

What was dominant before ecomodernism?

Answer 10

A legislative-bureaucratic approach to environmental harm with a basic set of rules for emissions divided into small categories (water, air, soil), and pollution was not yet a structural problem but could be contained

Question 11

What happened after the 1980s?

Answer 11

Ecological modernization became dominant in

Environmental policy (polluter pays principle, cost-benefit analysis)

Science

Macroeconomics (managing scarce resources, stopping externalization of economic costs onto environment)

Question 12

3 reasons why ecomodernism is dominant/an easy sell?

Answer 12

1. It frames environmental crisis as a win-win business opportunity, where pollution is an inefficiency problem that requires new technological innovation, opening new markets and demands
2. Doesn’t require structural change, but merely advocates for a techno-institutional fix in the existing social order
3. Neutralizes more radical environmentalisms, rejecting the need to reimagine society and deviating from modernity; no extreme solutions or break with the system

Question 13

What is Green Keynesianism?

Answer 13

Environmental harm integral to modernity because it is integral to capitalism, so the state must step in and lead greening of capitalism and stopping the externalization of costs of economy onto people and the environment

Question 14

The role of the state in Green Keynesianism (4 points)

Answer 14

Greening capitalism via massive public investments, creating new jobs, and taking active role in social provision, prioritizing public goals over private interests and profits

Question 15

Keynesian economics

Answer 15

Consumptive demand of economy must be artificially stimulated during crises via fiscal and monetary policy

Question 16

What are Faux Green Deal Projects?

Answer 16

Advocating for carbon-taxes, research and development funding, small-scale subsidies. Problem is that they do not go far enough and is not democratic enough

Question 17

How is environmental harm a collective action problem/market failure/tragedy of the commons?

Answer 17

Markets can’t or don’t mediate resource allocation optimally because of asymmetric information, opportunism, and resources that are hard to privatize

Question 18

How can the state solve the collective action problem/market failure of environmental harm - 2 views:

Answer 18

1. State ITSELF acts as a resource coordinator, managing resource use toward societal and environmental long-term interest = Green New Deal
2. The state builds markets to coordinate resource use, making actors responsible for their actions via pricing and privatization, internalizing externalities, e.g. taxes on emissions and degradation till force marekts to a sustainable equilibrium price that reduces demand = Faux Green New Deal

Question 19

3 reasons why Green Keynesianism is attractive

Answer 19

1. Taps into post-2008 interest in returning the state to the economy
2. Doesn’t require structural change, capitalism can be greened
3. Can appeal to many ideological camps, for those advocating for environmental concerns and those advocating for economic growth

Question 20

Is Keynesianism still viable, according to Mann & Wainwright in Climate Leviathan?

Answer 20

The state is no longer able to shape the movement of capital as effectively as it once did because of:

• Neoliberalism (chipping away at their autonomy)
• International finance (decoupled capital accumulation from domestic affairs)

Thus, a global sovereign is needed to pull Kenynesian levers of a globalized economy, but this is politically unlikely, and genuine green capitalism is beyond the state’s abilities today

Question 21

3 challenges to Green Keynesianism

Answer 21

1. Still environmentally taxing, no matter how efficient
2. Purpose of green energy is not to enjoy it for its own sake, but to reap profits and producing endlessly, and this has environmental consequences
3. Even a switch to immaterial services (in service economy), the provision of services can be just as environmentally taxing as material goods -> no job can really be green in an over-consumptive economy

Question 22

3 challenges to ecomodernism

Answer 22

1. Efficiency gains may just be funnelled into more production and consumption, producing more and more, which taxes the environment
2. If what is economically profitable does not equal what is environmentally beneficial, the first always takes priority
3. Technological improvements that help the environment may have socially regressive impacts, coming at a social cost

Question 23

Major issues with ecomodernism and Green Keynesianism: modern ethos

Answer 23

Greening modernity merely means reinscribing human hubris of wanting to dominate, exploit and get nature to serve us, and they authorize us to destroy the non-human environment for our own purposes

Both EM and GK miss the root cause of the problem

Question 24

Modernity and the centering of humanity - 2 points

Answer 24

1. Knowledge becomes infinitely open to human inquiry and nature’s secrets can be extracted and used for human benefit
2. Time becomes linear and reflective of human-generated progress, instead of following the ebb and flow of nature cycles; no end to human improvement

Question 25

Why can’t modernity be the solution to environmental harm? What is the solution instead?

Answer 25

Because human hubris (the thought of being able to control everything and that the non-human environment is thought to exist for humanity’s enjoyment and taking) is too integral to it and caused environmental harm in the first place

The solution instead is a humbler ethos that acknowledges reliance on and debt to non-human nature