Riscophrenia and "animal spirits": clarifying the notions of risk and uncertainty in environmental problems

This article seeks to clarify the concepts of risk and uncertainty, restricting its focus to environmental problems and to three strands of reflection. Firstly, I suggest that we should apply the label riscophrenia to the tendency to envisage most environmental problems excessively in terms of probabilistic risk, erecting the concept to a core dogma of certainty based on the image it offers of (alleged) safety and control of the random. Looking at the most serious environmental problems of the twenty-first century through the prism of "animal spirits" is above all an exercise which shows that unpredictability and uncertainties are constituent elements of human existence and social life. Secondly, I argue that the assessment of uncertainty has political and normative implications. I hold that uncertainty may make it possible to invoke precautionary, not just preventive, measures, and that alternative "contextualised" research strategies, open to a variety of points of view, are possible. Lastly, I claim that the language of risk and its excessive application is generally laden with a type of ambiguity which tends not to emphasize society's current problems, and so facilitates the continuation rather than the questioning of our society's dominant technocratic and technological model

QUATRO IDEIAS-CHAVE PARA PENSAR A PROTEÇÃO DA AMAZÓNIA

Este artigo elenca quatro ideias-chave para pensar os problemas com que a Amazónia se defronta e sua proteção: (1) a linguagem do risco probabilístico é equivocada para analisar os problemas ecológicos e os padrões tecnológicos e económicos dominantes; (2) neste tipo de problemas existem múltiplas incertezas, não suscetíveis de probabilização, devido à influência de interações imprevistas, sinergias negativas e opacidades causais; (3) negar a incerteza e a imprevisibilidade dos problemas que afetam a Amazónia contribui para aumentar a dificuldade em enfrentar um cenário de catástrofe, cujos contornos são difíceis de antever ou de localizar com precisão; (4) poder perspetivar a Amazóniacomo uma “zona de sacrifício” obriga a decisões que envolvem um questionamento sobre os padrões de crescimento económico, as opções tecnológicas passadas e atuais, as escolhas sobre os recursos, eos valores e as experiências das populações

Facing the Dark Side: How Leadership Destroys Organisational Innovation

Leadership is an essential element for promoting innovation. The literature has primarily focused on the effect of “constructive” leadership on innovation, although numerous studies point out that destructive leadership affects organizational performance. However, such literature pays little attention to the relationship between destructive leadership and innovation. This study uses an online survey of 210 employees from 80 Portuguese firms in different sectors, to test the effect of destructive leadership on behavioural innovation and how a caring climate influences such relationship. The analysis uses multiple linear regressions to test the hypotheses. Findings reveal that destructive leadership has a negative effect on innovation and on caring climate. The results show that a caring climate influences innovation in a positive way that mitigates the relationship between destructive leadership and innovation

Methodological Luddism: A concept for tying degrowth to the assessment and regulation of technologies

This article sets out an alternative approach to the assessment and regulation of technology and innovation, situated in and aiming at degrowth and building on an idea first put forward in the late 1970s by Langdon Winner called “methodological Luddism”. Methodological Luddism does not have the original meaning of destroying machines, nor does it reflect a prejudiced attitude or a negative view of technology. As outlined in this article, it sets out to overcome the presumption that technology is valueneutral and to lower the inflated expectations with which it is generally associated. Technology and forms of life are mutually interdependent, and this implies examining the constructive possibilities for withdrawing from some technologies and adopting others, while ensuring that their role is limited to means designed to achieve certain predefined ends. The article draws on the work of Hans Jonas and Albert Borgmann, authors yet to be acknowledged by the degrowth literature. Jonas’ principle of responsibility is a response to the excessive prowess of modern technologies, while Borgmann suggests a reform of technology through focal things and practices. Building on these concepts, methodological Luddism advocates reassessing and reorienting technologies so that informed decisions may be taken as to how they should be designed and developed as means to socially equitable and ecologically sustainable ends. In this way the technological sphere may become an important ally in the transformative change in society which is required to fulfil the axiological parameters of degrowth.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Risks, alternative knowledge strategies and democratic legitimacy: the conflict over co-incineration of hazardous industrial waste in Portugal.

The decision to incinerate hazardous industrial waste in cement plants (the socalled ‘co-incineration’ process) gave rise to one of the most heated environmental conflicts ever to take place in Portugal. The bitterest period was between 1997 and 2002, after the government had made a decision. Strong protests by residents, environmental organizations, opposition parties, and some members of the scientific community forced the government to backtrack and to seek scientific legitimacy for the process through scientific expertise. The experts ratified the government’s decision, stating that the risks involved were socially acceptable. The conflict persisted over a decade and ended up clearing the way for a more sustainable method over which there was broad social consensus – a multifunctional method which makes it possible to treat, recover and regenerate most wastes. Focusing the analysis on this conflict, this paper has three aims: (1) to discuss the implications of the fact that expertise was ‘confiscated’ after the government had committed itself to the decision to implement co-incineration and by way of a reaction to the atmosphere of tension and protest; (2) to analyse the uses of the notions of ‘risk’ and ‘uncertainty’ in scientific reports from both experts and counter-experts’ committees, and their different assumptions about controllability and criteria for considering certain practices to be sufficiently safe for the public; and (3) to show how the existence of different technical scientific and political attitudes (one more closely tied to government and the corporate interests of the cement plants, the other closer to the environmental values of reuse and recycling and respect for the risk perception of residents who challenged the facilities) is closely bound up with problems of democratic legitimacy. This conflict showed how adopting more sustainable and lower-risk policies implies a broader view of democratic legitimacy, one which involves both civic movements and citizens themselves

Quadro ideias-chave para pensar proteção da Amazônia

Este artigo elenca quatro ideias-chave para pensar os problemas com que a Amazónia se defronta e sua proteção: (1) a linguagem do risco probabilístico é equivocada para analisar os problemas ecológicos e os padrões tecnológicos e económicos dominantes; (2) neste tipo de problemas existem múltiplas incertezas, não suscetíveis de probabilização, devido à influência de interações imprevistas, sinergias negativas e opacidades causais; (3) negar a incerteza e a imprevisibilidade dos problemas que afetam a Amazónia contribui para aumentar a dificuldade em enfrentar um cenário de catástrofe, cujos contornos são difíceis de antever ou de localizar com precisão; (4) poder perspetivar a Amazónia como uma “zona de sacrifício” obriga a decisões que envolvem um questionamento sobre os padrões de crescimento económico, as opções tecnológicas passadas e atuais, as escolhas sobre os recursos, e os valores e as experiências das populações.UFPA - Universidade Federal do Par

Riscophrenia and "animal spirits": clarifying the notions of risk and uncertainty in environmental problems

This article seeks to clarify the concepts of risk and uncertainty, restricting its focus to environmental problems and to three strands of reflection. Firstly, I suggest that we should apply the label riscophrenia to the tendency to envisage most environmental problems excessively in terms of probabilistic risk, erecting the concept to a core dogma of certainty based on the image it offers of (alleged) safety and control of the random. Looking at the most serious environmental problems of the twenty-first century through the prism of "animal spirits" is above all an exercise which shows that unpredictability and uncertainties are constituent elements of human existence and social life. Secondly, I argue that the assessment of uncertainty has political and normative implications. I hold that uncertainty may make it possible to invoke precautionary, not just preventive, measures, and that alternative "contextualised" research strategies, open to a variety of points of view, are possible. Lastly, I claim that the language of risk and its excessive application is generally laden with a type of ambiguity which tends not to emphasize society's current problems, and so facilitates the continuation rather than the questioning of our society's dominant technocratic and technological model