Matthew Paterson
Sun, 24 Feb 2008 18:51:32 -0800
Following what Willett says, however, is that the earlier books, I think of Soft Energy Paths in particular, were clear that the technological choices about energy were absolutely political and social. Choosing a soft energy future was also choosing a decentralised, potentially libertarian, society, while hard energy technoloies necessitated massive security apparatuses and so on. This is different to thinking through the social obstacles to the uptake of new technologies, admittedly, but at least in his earlier incarnations, there was this recognition of technology as social, before he got his free-market boosterism somewhere in the 1980s. Mat -- Matthew Paterson Professor of Political Science School of Political Studies Université d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa 55, rue Laurier est / 55 Laurier East Ottawa, Ontario K1N 6N5 Canada tel: +1 613 562-5800 x1716 Fax +1 613 562-5371 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web site: http://www.socialsciences.uottawa.ca/pol/eng/index.asp From: willett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 15:39:59 -0500 To: Bram Büscher <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: Global Environmental Education <gep-ed@listserve1.allegheny.edu> Subject: Re: Critique on Amory Lovins / RMI Two decades ago, Denton Morrison published a couple of aritlces in the sociological literatuares laying out all of Lovin's social science assertions found in earlier books. He wasn't really critical but it was clear that even the earlier work had huge numbers of unproven assertions about society, combined with a pretty good (if optimistic) analysis of emerging technologies. I haven't loooked for anything more recent. Willett Kempton On 24 Feb 2008, at 15:22, Bram Büscher wrote: > > > > Dear All, > > I was at the Berlin conference of the Human Dimensions of Global Change > yesterday and attended a (video conference) presentation by dr. Amory Lovins > of the Rocky Mountain institute. I have seen few people so bluntly reduce all > environmental problems (and the politics around it) to technological fetishes > (apparently accessible to all?). > > He also advocated another book of his and colleagues entitled 'Natural > Capitalism' that again combines all the good and the ugly into a 'profitable' > 'win-win' mix for all of humankind and nature... On the website of the book > (natcap.org) it says that they want to publish cheers and jeers, but that 'so > far, the book has received almost pure praise and that frankly, this is a bit > embarrassing'. > > Now, personally, I cannot imagine this, and wonder whether anybody on the > list has some suggestions for critical literature/articles. Basically, I'm > looking for some more practical armour in the face of people who so > optimistically go about selling such grand illusions. > > Thanks, > > Bram > > > > >