In this context the proponent of an activity, rather than the public, should bear the burden of proof.
The process of applying the Precautionary Principle must be open, informed and democratic and must include potentially affected parties. It must also involve an examination of the full range of alternatives, including no action. [3]
This idea is not new. An early challenge to greed-fueled technological fundamentalism came from the Luddites, artisans who resisted the factory system in early 19th century Britain not because they were afraid of machines but because they anticipated the negative effects of a dangerous and dehumanizing system on their communities. The contemporary use of “Luddite” as a synonym for “someone with an irrational fear of anything new” indicates how a fearful culture regards this kind of thoughtful critique. The lesson we should learn from the early Industrial Revolution is that the Luddites were correct -- by overvaluing machines we can easily undervalue people and the non-human living world.
Today, some critics of the culture’s technological fundamentalism describe themselves as neo-Luddites, an attempt to connect to the wisdom of that earlier movement. Neo-Luddites recognize that technological scepticism and the adoption of the precautionary principle would slow the introduction of new inventions -- unless a compelling need to take a risk could be justified in an open and democratic process -- and that would be a good thing. Slowing down a runaway train doesn’t magically take care of all problems, but it usually beneficial both for those in the path of the train and those riding it.
Let’s leave the train metaphor and go back to the issue of the cars on the road. The most common response to the social and ecological pathology of the car culture has not been to rethink the reasons and ways we transport ourselves, but rather to figure out how to replace petroleum so we can continue to drive, leading to the manic quest for “alternative fuels.” This has led to the promotion of corn-based ethanol, which is now widely understood to be a disaster on all fronts: it takes almost as much energy to produce as is recovered, intensifies unsustainable farming practices, and increases costs of food. [4] Technological fundamentalism -- exacerbated by the greed of private agribusiness corporations that are publicly subsidized -- created the climate in which corn-based ethanol emerged, and for years journalists yawned at the larger issues. Now we can see the depth of the technological fundamentalism in the way in which journalists start to critique corn-based ethanol; routinely such discussions come with an implicit or explicit endorsement of other biofuels, such as sugar cane or switch grass.
Recognizing that “[t]he economics of corn ethanol have never made much sense,” the New York Times editorialized in 2007 that:
There is nothing wrong with developing alternative fuels, and there is high hope among environmentalists and even venture capitalists that more advanced biofuels -- like cellulosic ethanol -- can eventually play a constructive role in reducing oil dependency and greenhouse gases. What’s wrong is letting politics -- the kind that leads to unnecessary subsidies, the invasion of natural landscapes best left alone and soaring food prices that hurt the poor -- rather than sound science and sound economics drive America’s energy policy. [5]
To the Times, the belief in technological solutions is unquestioned; the only problem is the interference of politics. But what if “sound science and sound economics” argue for first recognizing the need to radically reshape our landscapes and lives to reduce dramatically our need for large quantities of portable liquid fuels for individualized transportation? What if biofuels are a key component of the fantasy scenario that allows so many to believe we can continue business as usual? When those crucial questions are left out of stories, journalists reinforce technological fundamentalism.
A year later, the Times was still avoiding the limits of biofuels, encouraging Congress to continue subsidies “as an important part of the effort to reduce the country’s dependency on imported oil and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”[6] Identifying the problem as dependency on imported oil leads away from a focus on the core problem of -- to borrow a phrase from the social/ecological analyst James Howard Kunstler -- a “living arrangement with no future”[7] on which the United States is structured. The Times is hindering, not helping to advance, the conversation needed.
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