Ecological Modernisation in UK Science-Policy Communities: The Case of Acid Rain and Critical Loads

Abstract

This paper attempts to follow the political resolution of uncertainty within the acid rain debate in relation to science-policy processes in the UK from 1970 to the present day. It is suggested that the emergence of an epistemic community of scientists, policy-makers, and NGOs cohering around the key concept of critical loads, has been a necessary condition for the evolution of ecomodernist air pollution control policies. Finally it is suggested that although the epistemic community has been influential in diffusing critical loads-based approaches to air pollution control within the major supranational environmental regimes in Europe (the UN ECE and European Community), structural political and economic factors still remain the most important drivers of final policy.