3
INVOKING ‘SCIENCE’ IN
DEBATES ABOUT GREEN
TRANSFORMATIONS
A help or a hindrance?
Erik Millstone
The question
The question that this chapter will address is: when ‘science’ is invoked in debates
about ‘sustainability’ and green transformations, is it a help or a hindrance to
understanding the characteristics and consequences of unsustainable practices and
transformational changes?
Introduction
Debates about the unsustainability of particular forms of resource extraction,
processing, exchange, consumption and disposal arose as a consequence of scientific
research into problematic changes in the conditions of our terrestrial environment.
Evidence emerging from such research indicated that multiple kinds of harm were
being inflicted on, for example, land, air and water, as well as on the flora and
fauna (including people) that depend on those media. Without scientific research
and the dissemination of its findings, we would never have known that chloro -
fluorocarbons (CFCs) were damaging the earth’s protective layer of ozone or that
emissions of greenhouse gases are destabilizing our climates. The fact that environ -
mental sciences are essential should not detract from a recognition that those sciences,
like other forms of human enquiry, can also be profoundly problematic, epistemo -
logically, culturally and politically.
The issue of the ‘sustainability’ and/or ‘unsustainability’ of prevailing practices
gained traction on, and rose up, policy agendas due in part to publications like
Rachael Carson’s Silent Spring (Carson, 1962; Bouwman et al., 2013). Carson’s
analysis was based on a careful integration of a very large number of fragments of
evidence, focusing on the adverse environmental impacts of agricultural chemicals, and in particular on (what subsequently was termed) the eco-toxicity of
DOI: 10.4324/9781315747378-3
INVOKING ‘SCIENCE’ IN
DEBATES ABOUT GREEN
TRANSFORMATIONS
A help or a hindrance?
Erik Millstone
The question
The question that this chapter will address is: when ‘science’ is invoked in debates
about ‘sustainability’ and green transformations, is it a help or a hindrance to
understanding the characteristics and consequences of unsustainable practices and
transformational changes?
Introduction
Debates about the unsustainability of particular forms of resource extraction,
processing, exchange, consumption and disposal arose as a consequence of scientific
research into problematic changes in the conditions of our terrestrial environment.
Evidence emerging from such research indicated that multiple kinds of harm were
being inflicted on, for example, land, air and water, as well as on the flora and
fauna (including people) that depend on those media. Without scientific research
and the dissemination of its findings, we would never have known that chloro -
fluorocarbons (CFCs) were damaging the earth’s protective layer of ozone or that
emissions of greenhouse gases are destabilizing our climates. The fact that environ -
mental sciences are essential should not detract from a recognition that those sciences,
like other forms of human enquiry, can also be profoundly problematic, epistemo -
logically, culturally and politically.
The issue of the ‘sustainability’ and/or ‘unsustainability’ of prevailing practices
gained traction on, and rose up, policy agendas due in part to publications like
Rachael Carson’s Silent Spring (Carson, 1962; Bouwman et al., 2013). Carson’s
analysis was based on a careful integration of a very large number of fragments of
evidence, focusing on the adverse environmental impacts of agricultural chemicals, and in particular on (what subsequently was termed) the eco-toxicity of
DOI: 10.4324/9781315747378-3