global institutions – for instance, in the notion that a ‘global referee’ should monitor
national and local adherence to limits (Rockström et al., 2009). Initiatives such as
the Earth Condominium Project and Planetary Boundaries Initiative have taken
this further, seeking the recognition of the ‘earth system’ and ‘safe operating space’
as legal entities that can legitimize supranational governance (Magalhães et al., 2013).
This is regulatory fixing and aspiration to global control at its extreme. Critics have
alluded to the danger that planetary boundaries will justify a top-down power grab
that will prove anti-democratic (Leach, 2013; Pielke, 2013; see also Stirling, this
book).
Second, green limits align neatly with planning fixes: managerial approaches
that attempt to rationalize spaces and places to meet a range of boundary-related
goals. A recent example is the World Bank’s landscape approach, in which areas
for food, fuel, conservation and other uses are demarcated within multi-use
landscapes (World Bank, 2014). We also see this in scientific and governance
approaches to parcelling up, often literally from above through the use of satellite
imagery and Geographic Information Systems (GIS), ‘logical’ places for food pro -
duction, commercial cropping and biofuels. These approaches do appreciate the
multiple uses of land in a world of intersecting challenges and simultaneous threats
to multiple boundaries, but whose rationality prevails? Who is included and
excluded from decisions and who suffers as a consequence? And what political–
economic interests might apparent ‘rationality’ conceal? When governments and
corporations arrange to put so-called ‘unproductive wastelands’ into large-scale
cropping leases, rhetorically to maximize their sustainable use, the underlying profit
motive is only barely hidden. Meanwhile, pastoralists and common property users
can find themselves dispossessed in what amounts to ‘green grabbing’ (Fairhead
et al., 2012). As Stirling (this book) argues more generally, such aspirations to rational,
top-down control fly in the face of the real, uncertain dynamics of social and
ecological systems, and often founder where they meet diverse, contested
perspectives and priorities.
Third, green limits discourses support attempted technical fixes. Large-scale
technical solutions are seen as appropriate – indeed, sometimes as necessary – to
meet planetary challenges at the speed and scale required. Here we see planetary
boundaries discourses connecting with versions of contemporary ‘green economy’
advocacy focused on technoscientific green growth. In the climate change field,
large-scale climate geoengineering is a classic example, with justifications for the
large-scale use of carbon capture, cloud-seeding, albedo-reflecting and other
technologies referring to their ‘quick win’ potential to keep the world within
temperature limits. In the agricultural domain, green limits and technoscientific
green growth discourses combine to prioritize modern agricultural biotechnologies,
including genetically modified (GM), and their roll-out at scale. Such a focus on
big, quick, technofixes often suits the government agencies and businesses involved
in developing and promoting these. Yet their control-oriented focus may prove
unrealistic in the face of the uncertain dynamics of sociotechnical and climate systems
(Hulme, 2012; Stirling, this book). They may close out other technological options
What is green? 35
national and local adherence to limits (Rockström et al., 2009). Initiatives such as
the Earth Condominium Project and Planetary Boundaries Initiative have taken
this further, seeking the recognition of the ‘earth system’ and ‘safe operating space’
as legal entities that can legitimize supranational governance (Magalhães et al., 2013).
This is regulatory fixing and aspiration to global control at its extreme. Critics have
alluded to the danger that planetary boundaries will justify a top-down power grab
that will prove anti-democratic (Leach, 2013; Pielke, 2013; see also Stirling, this
book).
Second, green limits align neatly with planning fixes: managerial approaches
that attempt to rationalize spaces and places to meet a range of boundary-related
goals. A recent example is the World Bank’s landscape approach, in which areas
for food, fuel, conservation and other uses are demarcated within multi-use
landscapes (World Bank, 2014). We also see this in scientific and governance
approaches to parcelling up, often literally from above through the use of satellite
imagery and Geographic Information Systems (GIS), ‘logical’ places for food pro -
duction, commercial cropping and biofuels. These approaches do appreciate the
multiple uses of land in a world of intersecting challenges and simultaneous threats
to multiple boundaries, but whose rationality prevails? Who is included and
excluded from decisions and who suffers as a consequence? And what political–
economic interests might apparent ‘rationality’ conceal? When governments and
corporations arrange to put so-called ‘unproductive wastelands’ into large-scale
cropping leases, rhetorically to maximize their sustainable use, the underlying profit
motive is only barely hidden. Meanwhile, pastoralists and common property users
can find themselves dispossessed in what amounts to ‘green grabbing’ (Fairhead
et al., 2012). As Stirling (this book) argues more generally, such aspirations to rational,
top-down control fly in the face of the real, uncertain dynamics of social and
ecological systems, and often founder where they meet diverse, contested
perspectives and priorities.
Third, green limits discourses support attempted technical fixes. Large-scale
technical solutions are seen as appropriate – indeed, sometimes as necessary – to
meet planetary challenges at the speed and scale required. Here we see planetary
boundaries discourses connecting with versions of contemporary ‘green economy’
advocacy focused on technoscientific green growth. In the climate change field,
large-scale climate geoengineering is a classic example, with justifications for the
large-scale use of carbon capture, cloud-seeding, albedo-reflecting and other
technologies referring to their ‘quick win’ potential to keep the world within
temperature limits. In the agricultural domain, green limits and technoscientific
green growth discourses combine to prioritize modern agricultural biotechnologies,
including genetically modified (GM), and their roll-out at scale. Such a focus on
big, quick, technofixes often suits the government agencies and businesses involved
in developing and promoting these. Yet their control-oriented focus may prove
unrealistic in the face of the uncertain dynamics of sociotechnical and climate systems
(Hulme, 2012; Stirling, this book). They may close out other technological options
What is green? 35