Suchergebnisse

This paper draws from The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula Le Guin to highlight some of the most likely pitfalls on the political road to a sustainable planet. Through the literary device of dreams that can change the world, Le Guin explores how the individual's egoistic desire to save humanity can be twisted by the limitations of our psyche and our society, turning an already uncomfortable future Earth into a devastated planet. It is a stinging critique of answers handed down from above, and a call to action for those of us who just get by here below. Her story warns of the ancient "road to hell", paved and trodden by would be saviors with the best intentions but also points to the license that public apathy provides to the powerful when the costs of environmental harm are borne by the powerless. These disconnects, combined with cycles of rationalization, silver bullet mentalities, and the tendency to scapegoat others for negative side effects, can all derail sustainability transitions. Lathe provides an allegorical assessment of this process, but much more study is needed to fully understand and regulate the resulting governance treadmill.

This paper draws from The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula Le Guin to highlight some of the most likely pitfalls on the political road to a sustainable planet. Through the literary device of dreams that can change the world, Le Guin explores how the individual's egoistic desire to save humanity can be twisted by the limitations of our psyche and our society, turning an already uncomfortable future Earth into a devastated planet. It is a stinging critique of answers handed down from above, and a call to action for those of us who just get by here below. Her story warns of the ancient "road to hell", paved and trodden by would be saviors with the best intentions but also points to the license that public apathy provides to the powerful when the costs of environmental harm are borne by the powerless. These disconnects, combined with cycles of rationalization, silver bullet mentalities, and the tendency to scapegoat others for negative side effects, can all derail sustainability transitions. Lathe provides an allegorical assessment of this process, but much more study is needed to fully understand and regulate the resulting governance treadmill.

There is a growing consensus that environmental governance is a wicked problem that requires understanding of the many linkages and feedbacks between human and natural systems. Here, I propose an action cycle/structural context (AC/SC) framework that is based on the concept of responsive governance, in which individuals and decision makers respond to problems rather than working to prevent them. By linking agency and structure, the AC/SC framework points out two key problems in the realm of environmental governance: the profit disconnect, whereby economic signals of environmental harm are dampened by endogenous or exogenous forces, and the power disconnect, whereby those who feel the costs of harm are politically marginalized and so have little influence to effect solutions. I apply this framework to fisheries to develop hypotheses regarding exclusionary and conservation-oriented responses under different power/profit dynamics. These expectations are tested in a historical case study of management of the lobster fishery in Maine. The analysis confirms the importance of profit/power dynamics and reveals that governance tends to go through effective and ineffective cycles in a management treadmill that can be driven by internal or external forces. The latter in particular are generally ignored in fisheries management but could ultimately undermine sustainability even in previously well-managed systems.