ENVIRONMENT, MODERNITY AND THE RISK-SOCIETY: THE APOCALYPTIC HORIZON OF ENVIRONMENTAL REFORM

Abstract

The apocalyptic dimension of the ecological situation seems to emerge in the present-day environmental debate. But in contrast to the early seventies, eco-alarmism in its present form seems to reflect growing uncertainties and anxieties related to the changing character of late modern society. Such uncertainties and anxieties do not only pertain to high-consequence risks, as exemplified by the Chernobyl accident, but also to local problems of providing safe drinking water from the tap. Ulrich Beck's risk-society theory, elaborated by Anthony Giddens, analyses these eco-anxieties against the background of changing conditions of modernity. Because of its overall pessimistic undertone and its basic questioning of the role of science and technology in overcoming an eco-catastrophe, the risk-society theory seems to fundamentally contradict ecological modernisation theory. In confronting both perspectives, the paper aims to contribute to environmental sociology in three ways. First, we try to come to understand the present-day rise of ecoalarmism. Second, an evaluation is made of the contribution of risk-society theory in analysing environmental problems and in developing projective realistic utopian models dealing with the environmental crisis under conditions of late or reflexive modernity. Finally, by bringing formal sociological theory into environmental sociology, both models contribute to the conceptual development and refinement of the sub-discipline.