- Email: [email protected]
Risk landscapes in the era of social transition
Futures 33 (2001) 307–317 www.elsevier.com/locate/futures
Risk landscapes in the era of social transition Matti Kamppinen *, Markku Wilenius
1
Finland Futures Research Centre, Turku School of Economics and Business Administration, P.O. Box 110, FIN-20521 Turku, Finland
Abstract The notions of risk and risk landscape provide useful tools for futures research, concerned as it is with the contingent, future courses of events. Our key concept, the risk landscape, refers to the network of possible worlds shaped by the beliefs, expectations and fears of human actors. We propose that so-called late modern times are characterised by changing risk landscapes, dominated by such risks as climate change. These new risks are highly theoretical, dependent on expert knowledge, and the distribution of costs and benefits related to them does not obey national or class boundaries. 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction: risk theory and futures thinking For futures research, the theory of risk provides essential conceptual tools. Risk models are models of future courses of events. Societies and their constituent actors face a collection of branching futures, and by means of identifying the probabilities and utilities attached to these possibilities, actors are able to navigate in the world [1]. In futures research, the concept of scenario has been used for the same purpose. Scenarios concern the future chains of events and they can be either implicit in the minds of actors or they can be made explicit during the processes of action research, planning, and so on. Whereas the notion of scenario coincides with the notion of future model, the concept of risk emphasises the possibility of loss and harm. The concept of risk has one advantage, though, when compared with the notion of scenario. Risks are composed of two components, the harm and the probability
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +358-2-338-3599; fax: +358-2-233-0755. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (M. Kamppinen), [email protected] Wilenius). 1 Tel.: +358-2-338-3528; fax: +358-2-233-0755. 0016-3287/01/$ - see front matter 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII: S 0 0 1 6 - 3 2 8 7 ( 0 0 ) 0 0 0 7 2 - 0
(M.
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component, thus inviting the futurist to think in more detailed and specific terms than just “future courses of events”. The harm component can be further analysed into two constituents: the state of affairs and the value attached to it. The state of affairs, that is, how things are in some possible future world, is further analysable into different levels of being: physical, biological, social and economical. Moreover, states of affairs can be analysed into their constituent objects (simple and relational objects), relations and processes. The probability component can be understood in at least two ways. According to the propensity interpretation it is the property of individual events. They just possess the property that their existence has some probability. This interpretation has always posed the following difficulty: in the case of non-existent events that have a positive probability attached to them, what are we to make of their non-existence? The series interpretation claims, on the contrary, that probabilities are properties of series of events, not of individual events as such. The series interpretation is in line with statistical thinking, and it helps us to tackle the problem of individual events: if things go well on the average, but we are stuck with a bad situation, the series interpretation guides us to ask why this is so and what could be done in order to put our circumstances into the same pattern that things in general are. The series interpretation provides us with an intelligible world. Thus, by means of risk theory, our view of what is going to take place is enhanced. In what follows we shall look at the characteristic ways of assessing risks in contemporary societies. Our argument is that risks like climate change pose challenges for the cognitive and cultural tools utilised in risk perception and management. Our story has three parts. First we look at the cognitive and cultural mechanisms of risk perception: how are risk profiles and landscapes formed? Secondly we tackle the issue of transition: what are the specific characteristics of our era, especially in the light of environmental risks? Thirdly we go on to explore the risk perceptions of Finnish environmental actors in the context of climate change.
2. The formation of the risk landscape By the notion of risk landscape we mean the cognitive model of an individual (or a group) by means of which he conceptualises the possibilities and values residing in the world. The cognitive mechanisms affecting the formation of the risk landscape has been captured for example by Paul Slovic and his associates [2,1]. In studying the acceptability of different technological projects, they managed to identify the dimensions effective in people’s perception of risks. These are: 앫 앫 앫 앫
distribution of costs and benefits; control; knowledge; and time.
The first dimension means that, in weighing the acceptability of some project, people
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tend to consider the distribution of costs and benefits, who is exposed to risks and who will be safe. The more unjust the pattern of distribution, the higher the perceived risk. The second dimension tells that the sense of control is of utmost importance. People are far more ready to accept risks that they feel are in their own control. If a project is perceived to be in someone else’s hands, it is crucial that this someone else is trusted. The weaker the trust in the institutions of environmental management, for example, the higher the perceived risks of environmental changes. Knowledge is a prominent component of risk landscapes, since most risks, especially those of current times, are theory-dependent. The networks of possible worlds in which risks reside exist only in relation to knowledge, and thus different knowledge systems produce different risk landscapes. Knowledge and trust are intimately related: the source of knowledge should be trusted when assessing the risk identified by that piece of knowledge. The distinction between empirical and theoretical knowledge relates systematically to risk assessment, as well. Empirical knowledge of an individual refers to those items he knows by perception and experience. Theoretical knowledge pertains to invisible things, entities whose existence and properties must be inferred. In human societies much of this theoretical knowledge is in the hands of experts, and available for lay people through experts only. To put it metaphorically, risks move through a tunnel of knowledge, transforming from barely known but threatening dangers into conceptualised risks. New technologies, for example, involve unknown components and hence their risks are perceived to be higher. The fourth and last dimension is time. Risks have temporal profiles; that is, they are situated in time as temporally extended entities. They have their origins, life spans, and their respective endings in time. The crucial question for an average individual assessing the temporal profiles of risks involved in any strategy concerns its relation to “here and now”. That is, according to empirical findings, people tend to value things differently when they differ temporally: things that are further away in the future are discounted in terms of costs and benefits. According to our assumption, the risk of climate change is a particularly interesting phenomenon that could be assessed in terms of these dimensions. It is partly unknown, its effects are out of control of ordinary people, and its temporal profile is far removed from the practices of everyday life. Time spans reaching beyond decades, not to mention centuries, have proved to be especially challenging for our cognitive apparatus, tuned as it is to think in terms of days, weeks and months. In the risk profile of late modernity, climate change signals the presence of high risks. The cognitive resources for people’s risk assessment are not limited to the dimensions of risk perception characterised above. In addition, societies have shared cultural models of risks, traditions of understanding through which possibilities and values are conceptualised. The cultural models of risks are temporal entities — they are born, flourish, and die out in changing social realities. They are shared, collective entities, and are used by individuals in conceptual operations like problem-solving. Moreover, they tend to crystallise in time; that is, their structures are formed in social interactions and hence they provide filters and models for individual cognitive models. Cultural models of risk are affected by such measures as risk management and damage control: the measures taken for the purpose of containing a hazard may end
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up in intensifying the risk. Finally, models of risk are intimately tied with social processes like the formation of identities and the distribution of power. The notion of cultural model invites us to conceptualise the actual environmental processes taking place in real societies as processes of construction. The cultural models of climate change, for example, are constructed in education, media, and other social interactions. The climate issue receives its meaning in these processes. In the remaining we shall look at how the risk landscape is formed in the information society. After that we shall investigate how the characteristics of risks, studied above, are reflected in expert views on climate change. Even though the dimensions of perceived risks are assumed to reflect lay people’s risk landscape, they will reveal systematic aspects of the expert views as well.
3. Information society and risk society: the era of transition Information society has been aptly characterised as a risk society [3]. It differs from the earlier societal formations on two grounds: it hosts new kinds of risks, and its essential properties are determined by risk-related activities like risk assessment and risk management. By ‘risk’ we mean the possibility of harm. Risks are properties of systems whose dynamics are probabilistic, and where therefore exist genuine possibilities. In addition, these systems involve cognitive agents who are capable of representing possibilities and are able to engage in valuation. At first sight, the ontological status of risks is that they are higher-level properties of complex systems that involve culturally groomed cognitive systems. This ontological setting lies behind so-called non-linear processes as well. The emergence of new risks is an example of nonlinear processes characteristic of information society. By ‘information risks’ we mean harmful possibilities which are realised (or actualised) in information technology, or generated by information technology. Information technology is here understood in a wide sense: the artefacts and the pertinent models which are used in gathering, producing, processing and utilising information. Thus, for example, a malfunction in a home computer when one has just found an interesting piece of information, is obviously an actualised information risk, whereas the feeling of incompetence experienced by an elder citizen when facing an automatic teller machine is an example of a risk generated by information technology. In addition to the above, all “ordinary risks” have an information component, which alters their nature and augments their harmful effects. Writing with a typewriter has some risks, but writing with a computer adds on novel dimensions: possibilities of losing the document, getting a headache and an overdose of electromagnetic radiation. The threat of global warming that generates stress due to its media coverage is another example of the information component of a risk. Evolutionary theory of cultural traits [4,5] provides an additional perspective into information risks: traits, be they cultural or biological, when they are subject to selection and scarcity of resources, fare better if they are variable. The uniformity
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of information technology and the real-time causal connections with global reach generate not only vulnerability, but also potential catastrophes. There is a growing tendency among many leading social scientists to emphasise the role of risks in the development of our late modern society [3,6,7]. The emergence of “risk society” means in essence that the distribution of risk, in contrast to the distribution of wealth, occupies an increasingly central position in the social and political processes of our societies. The distribution of risks takes place in a variety of different ways, which makes the recognition of the risk more difficult. However, we can distinguish three distinctive features that exemplify late modern order in the context of risk: 1. the separation of time and space as indicated in the process of globalisation and manifested in environmental risks; 2. the reinforcement of disembedding mechanisms as indicated in the social role of abstract systems and manifested in technological risks; and 3. the growth of social reflexivity as indicated in individualisation of modern identity and manifested in information risks. If we had to name a common denominator for all the material or social processes of late modern societies, it would no doubt be globalisation. Although the process of globalisation manifests itself in many ways (globalisation of market economy, globalisation of Western cultural values, globalisation of communication systems, etc.), the best evidence for the globalising character of modernity, we may argue, is offered by the risk potential of global environmental threats, also known as “global environmental change” [8]. These changes, aptly exemplified by human-induced global warming, reveal environmental threats whose consequences reach far beyond local confines, in either spatial or temporal terms [9]. The separation of time and space manifests itself as the world-wide spread of the impacts of actualised risks. Culprits are hard to pinpoint since there is no single source for the risk. In the case of greenhouse gas emissions, for example, the sources are distributed around the globe. Another example that reveals the nature of late modern order is the extent to which our everyday life is dependent upon systems we have hardly any control of. These disembedding mechanisms can be seen in operation when, for example, we fetch water from a tap instead of a well, or when we use a word-processing program from the net instead of using a typewriter. In all such instances we are relying on systems invented and maintained by experts. Usually we are unaware of the operation of these systems but should a technological risk affecting such a system actualise, resulting in system failure, we generally have to call upon an expert to solve the problem. The third aspect of the late modern order, increasing social reflexivity, is intimately linked with the concept of ‘information society’ and its social and cultural preconditions. The development of modern culture tends to emphasise the role of individual in the formation of modern identity. At the same time, as never before, our everyday life happens amidst a growing stream of (dis)information, which we must come to grips with. Yet, as we grow increasingly reflective and critical about the information
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thus cast upon us, the risk of individual interpretation acquires a major role in our society, in contrast to previous forms of societies where a more collective form of understanding prevailed. This ‘principle of doubt’, as it can be termed, will eventually introduce new difficulties to the formation of social coherence in society. Each of these developments requires novel social and individual resources to respond to existing and upcoming changes. The risk profile of late modernity challenges our abilities for risk aversion. Political strategies have to be developed to tackle environmental risks, social and technological strategies to face technological risks, and individual strategies to seize the risks stemming from information stream. To sum up, in this context the advent of information society means that rational strategies will have to be developed to counteract the risks inherent in late modernity, as outlined above. Information society may facilitate these strategies but it is not, as such, a solution to these risks.
4. Climate change as a future risk As we have already pointed out, in the risk landscape of late modernity, climate change manifests some of the properties that are peculiar to the risks of our times [10,11]. In this section, we are going to explore some of the characteristics of climate change and then reflect on some of the results of the empirical analysis drawn from interviews among Finnish climate change experts concerning the risk aspects of climate change. There are some distinctive features that characterise climate change and brings the whole question of harmful changes to the post-war economic and technological development of the world system. Climate change is a risk induced by escalation of the global industrial system, resulting in increasing amounts of greenhouse gas emissions. The turning point was in the early 1950s, when the use of fossil fuels, particularly coal, petroleum and gas, the primary sources of greenhouse gases, rose steeply almost simultaneously [12]. In 1993, world energy consumption was almost 50% higher than only 20 years before. Similarly, world demand for metals and minerals rose by 120% between 1961 and 1990. From 1960, global-energy-related CO2 emissions rose from 2.5 billion tonnes of carbon up to almost 6 billion tonnes in 1992 [13]. According to most evaluations, humankind has used more natural resources after the 1950s than during its whole previous history [14]. All of this leads to rising concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere which development, according to models by climate scientists, leads to harmful changes in the atmospheric system. Though ‘natural’ climatic changes have had significant impact on human systems throughout human history, it is only now that the possibility of anthropogenic interference on climate on the planetary scale can be assumed [15]. Though it is rather obvious to assume, on the basis of evidence which shows increasing trends in material and energy flows, that humans have an impact on climate, it has been rather a rocky road to channel the observed risk into a concerted political action. The political history of climate change is a history of conflicting interests, where assumed high stakes in terms of benefits and particularly the costs
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have made it hard to make progress [9]. However, due to accumulating evidence of the severe risks related to business-as-usual scenarios, and due to the persistence of some of parties in the negotiation process, the loose approach heralded by the humble beginning of climate negotiations known as the Framework Convention on Climate Change has grown to include features of regulatory approach. The making of the Kyoto Protocol with the determination to set quantified targets to all industrialised countries for all of their greenhouse gas emissions has brought the risk dimension of climate to a concrete political agenda [16]. In many ways, negotiation process seems to be a trade-off of two dimensions of risk: on the one hand there is a risk of escalating environmental hazards if emissions cannot be effectively reduced. On the other hand, there is a risk of high economic costs that cutting of the emission would bring particularly to those countries and industries that have material- and energy-intensive production patterns. It is here that we may look closer at our empirical data concerning the risk perceptions among environmentally influential actors in order to assess how their ‘informed’ view of climate change relates to the dimensions of risks explicated in Sections 2 and 3.2
5. The distribution of costs and benefits With respect to the distribution of costs and benefits the risk landscape of climate change had the following four features. Firstly, the problem with democratic management of the risk. Many of the respondents emphasised that the management of the risk of climate change could not be restricted to the hands of small elite, but that it should be discussed and handled collectively. This means that, to begin with, a sufficient amount of information concerning the cost of action and non-action should be produced. As any major climate policy action may bring substantial consequences to economies, the importance of objective information is obvious. On the basis of this information, then, the issue concerning the immediate and long-term costs could be brought to public discussion. This could then boost rational action strategies that could then be carried out by government, industry and non-governmental organisations. Secondly, the issue of balancing short-term and long-term costs and benefits. Respondents often expressed their concern that short-term cost will easily overweigh long-term benefits of the action. On the other hand, representatives of the industry pointed out that too rapid response would produce too high a risk for the national economy. This view was challenged by the notion that the business-as-usual response would make the overall costs much higher in the long term, when proportionally 2
Our study was run in 1998–1999. The empirical data were gathered by doing 36 semi-structured interviews among Finnish environmental experts dealing with issues of climate change. The interviewees included officers from Government, representatives of major Finnish industries interested in the development of climate change policy, politicians of the Parliament occupied by environmental issues, researchers working in this field, and, eventually, representatives of major environmental movements in Finland.
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more stringent regulations are expected to take place. Thirdly, some of the respondents noted that risks related to deteriorating natural resource base could not be equalled with the costs induced by action. This is particularly hot topic in Finland, where the majority of our gross domestic product (GDP) is generated by the use of natural resources, particularly that of forest. Some respondents conclude that the cost of action is still at most some 3% of the GDP, which makes up the same kind of effect as a standard economic recession. Thirdly, the risks related to economic investments. It was stated that environmental policy, in its essence, is decision-making under uncertainty and minimising the risks should form the basis for rational decision-making. In terms of climate policy, the argument goes, the risks to make wrong investments are minimal, since all major policy means, increasing energy efficiency and resource productivity or reforestation for example, are as such measures that are ecologically and economically feasible measures irrespective of the truthfulness of the global warming argument. Fourthly, the issue of threatening costs. Some of the respondents compared the case of climate change with the nuclear armament race and pointed out that, while the threat perceived in the latter case was rather hypothetical and was yet the reason to invest an immense amount of resources to the development of arms, in the case of climate policy the benefits for investments are much more obvious.
6. The control of risk With respect to our second risk dimension, the issue of controlling the risk, we found the following two characteristics. Firstly, the risks related to the poor prognosis of global management. Many of our respondents had a rather pessimistic view on achieving the control of global emissions through the international system. This was seen to be an extremely difficult task particularly because even if some common measures to curb emissions in the Western countries could be achieved, the real problem of participation in the long run is met with needed involvement of developing countries. Since the total amount of emission from industrialised countries is most likely going to be bypassed by the emissions of developing countries within the next decade, the real challenge is seen to generate the process by which fast-growing countries like China could be tied to mitigation process before it is too late. Secondly, the risks generated by market mechanisms. Some of our respondents noted that a sufficient reduction in emissions in the West needs not only the development of technical fixes but also structural changes and a radical shift in consumption patterns. This challenge is seen to be one of the hardest and complicated social challenges in the coming century in terms of risk control. Many respondents identified uncontrolled market mechanisms as the root cause for upward emission trends and called for political measures to redirect the market forces. This is, of course, the track that has been called for in the constitution of the Kyoto Protocol, where a number of measures, such as joint implementation, emissions trading and a clean development mechanism, serve as market-centred measures to combat climate
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change. However, there was not much trust in society’s ability to impose any major changes, at least not on a short-term basis, to the market system, since the control of these markets has apparently slipped out of the hands of politicians.
7. Knowledge and climate change The dimension of knowledge was dominated by the following themes. Firstly, the issues concerning the relationship of risk and knowledge in climate change. Many of our respondents noted that the real problem of social understanding of climate change lies in the profound uncertainties that are embedded in the present understanding of the phenomenon. Thus, the consciousness of the risk is paralleled with the relative ignorance of its real impacts. Moreover, with climate change, the division of empirical and theoretical knowledge becomes crucial. Since (anthropogenic) climate change can only be verified by certain abstract systems provided by experts, the empirical evidence obtained by individuals is restricted to the perception of its impacts. This situation provides a profound distinction for the lay knowledge and expert knowledge. Thus the high risk profile of climate change, evident in our data, derives from uncertainties still present in the science of climate change and is further fuelled by the eventual inability of lay people to obtain knowledge from the phenomenon itself. Secondly, the threat of misinformation and high stakes. Some of the respondents noted that due to uncertainties inherent in climate change science, making the assessment of the impacts for a particular country extremely difficult, there is a danger of consistent dissemination of misinformation. This risk is also prompted by the fact that in the climate change policy, high economic stakes are present, and thus a lot of conflicting interest may emerge. In this respect, some actors may have good reasons for disseminating highly partial and even wrong information.
8. The temporal profile of climate change Some respondents brought forward the assumption that risk assessment will also in the future be in a central role in the decision-making of climate policy, particularly because any 100% certain knowledge about climate change and of the human impact on that change may neither now nor in the future be attainable. Moreover, though all of the major model-generated scenarios concerning climate change show already now significant impacts of increased greenhouse gas emissions on the biosphere and human systems in the 100 year future perspective, these models can always be classified as “partial knowledge” simply because (1) the model is not and will not be perfect; and (2) even if they can simulate the present climate this does not guarantee that they will do so in respect to the future climate. Thus, the argument for businessas-usual behaviour before any certain information on the detrimental effects of greenhouse gas emissions on the global scale is misplaced, since this is not the terms through which we should assess the whole problem.
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Many of our respondents had the general understanding that the long time spans related to the risk of climate change has a certain detrimental effect on penetration of the issue to political decision-making due to a certain hazy look of the problem. Though there is a general acceptance of the magnitude of the risk, in the final consideration of the financial resources, however, this risk is often overrun by other, more urgent and more tangible needs. On the other hand, climate change was seen as one good example of those infrastructure projects, like the building of roads and railways, where long-term thinking in terms of investment and technological development is badly needed.
9. Conclusions In terms of the acceptability of the risk, climate change appears to pose such a challenge to the self-control of society, that no societal institution can adequately master it at present. However, there is a strong belief that control over climate change may be enhanced in time, as technological advances are made in the crucial fields of expertise, particularly within energy industries. In contrast to this technological optimism, the major threat to controllability is supposed to emerge from the rise of population growth, welfare and material consumption in the developing countries that will, at present trends, lead to intolerable growth of emissions. In the field of knowing, the knowledge of the eventual impacts of climate change is still very much partial and this seems to make the acceptability of risk even harder. However, as the threat of climate change is slowly going through the tunnel of knowledge, changing into more calculable and conceptualised risk, the public perception of this risk may change into two different directions: either the concern will wane, if clear evidence is provided to the effect that the anthropogenic climate change hypothesis is not correct, or it will dramatically increase if solid evidence of human impact is found and even perceived. As one of our respondents note, “it seems as if the existence of the problem is almost now proven, which means that the risk exists, will accelerate and we cannot do else but take this problem seriously”. The temporal aspect of climate change is a difficult question that reveals the complexity of risk assessment and its complicated relation to political decision-making. On one hand, the assumption of climate change as a long-term future risk that may realise itself only after a considerable time, clearly diminishes its value as a problem that needs to be tackled immediately. On the other hand, our respondents brought forward that the relevance of the temporal aspect is manifested in the multiple connections of risk assessment to economic decision-making, where long-term considerations in terms of investments need every essential, even if partial information about the future. To sum up, the era of transition has brought about changes that challenge our cognitive and cultural resources of risk perception. The world is ever more complicated, thanks to our technology and science. In order to understand, survive and even manage the future, we need to study two things: the perceived risk landscapes of distinct groups, experts and lay people, and the real properties of this world.
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References [1] Kamppinen M, Walls M. Integrating biodiversity into decision making. Biodivers Conserv 1999;8:7–16. [2] Slovic P. Perception of risk. Science 1987;236:280–5. [3] Beck U. Risikogesellschaft. Auf dem Weg in eine andere Moderne. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1986. [4] Kamppinen M. Cognitive systems and cultural models of illness. Helsinki: Academia Scientiarum Fennica, 1989. [5] Kamppinen M. Evolution and culture. Futures 1998;30:481–4. [6] Giddens A. The consequences of modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1990. [7] Luhmann N. Soziologie des Risikos. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1991. [8] Wilenius M. From science to politics: the menace of global environmental change. Acta Sociol 1996;39(1). [9] Wilenius M, Tirkkonen J. Building a regime for climate protection: Finland and international climate policy. Global Environ Change 1998;8(4). [10] Flavin C, Tunali O. Climate of hope: new strategies for stabilizing the world’s atmosphere. In: Paper 130. Washington (DC): Worldwatch, 1996. [11] Schneider S. Laboratory earth. The planetary gamble we can’t afford to lose. London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1996. [12] Graedel T, Crutzen P. Atmosphere, climate and change. New York: Scientific American Library, 1995. [13] Critical trends. Global change and sustainable development. New York: United Nations, 1997. [14] McKibben B. A special moment in history. The Atlantic Monthly 1998;(May). [15] Fagan B. Floods, famines and emperors. El Nino and the faith of civilizations. New York: Basic Books, 1999. [16] Grubb M, Vrolijk C, Brack D. The Kyoto Protocol. A guide and assessment. London: The Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1999.
Risk landscapes in the era of social transition Matti Kamppinen *, Markku Wilenius
1
Finland Futures Research Centre, Turku School of Economics and Business Administration, P.O. Box 110, FIN-20521 Turku, Finland
Abstract The notions of risk and risk landscape provide useful tools for futures research, concerned as it is with the contingent, future courses of events. Our key concept, the risk landscape, refers to the network of possible worlds shaped by the beliefs, expectations and fears of human actors. We propose that so-called late modern times are characterised by changing risk landscapes, dominated by such risks as climate change. These new risks are highly theoretical, dependent on expert knowledge, and the distribution of costs and benefits related to them does not obey national or class boundaries. 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction: risk theory and futures thinking For futures research, the theory of risk provides essential conceptual tools. Risk models are models of future courses of events. Societies and their constituent actors face a collection of branching futures, and by means of identifying the probabilities and utilities attached to these possibilities, actors are able to navigate in the world [1]. In futures research, the concept of scenario has been used for the same purpose. Scenarios concern the future chains of events and they can be either implicit in the minds of actors or they can be made explicit during the processes of action research, planning, and so on. Whereas the notion of scenario coincides with the notion of future model, the concept of risk emphasises the possibility of loss and harm. The concept of risk has one advantage, though, when compared with the notion of scenario. Risks are composed of two components, the harm and the probability
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +358-2-338-3599; fax: +358-2-233-0755. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (M. Kamppinen), [email protected] Wilenius). 1 Tel.: +358-2-338-3528; fax: +358-2-233-0755. 0016-3287/01/$ - see front matter 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII: S 0 0 1 6 - 3 2 8 7 ( 0 0 ) 0 0 0 7 2 - 0
(M.
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component, thus inviting the futurist to think in more detailed and specific terms than just “future courses of events”. The harm component can be further analysed into two constituents: the state of affairs and the value attached to it. The state of affairs, that is, how things are in some possible future world, is further analysable into different levels of being: physical, biological, social and economical. Moreover, states of affairs can be analysed into their constituent objects (simple and relational objects), relations and processes. The probability component can be understood in at least two ways. According to the propensity interpretation it is the property of individual events. They just possess the property that their existence has some probability. This interpretation has always posed the following difficulty: in the case of non-existent events that have a positive probability attached to them, what are we to make of their non-existence? The series interpretation claims, on the contrary, that probabilities are properties of series of events, not of individual events as such. The series interpretation is in line with statistical thinking, and it helps us to tackle the problem of individual events: if things go well on the average, but we are stuck with a bad situation, the series interpretation guides us to ask why this is so and what could be done in order to put our circumstances into the same pattern that things in general are. The series interpretation provides us with an intelligible world. Thus, by means of risk theory, our view of what is going to take place is enhanced. In what follows we shall look at the characteristic ways of assessing risks in contemporary societies. Our argument is that risks like climate change pose challenges for the cognitive and cultural tools utilised in risk perception and management. Our story has three parts. First we look at the cognitive and cultural mechanisms of risk perception: how are risk profiles and landscapes formed? Secondly we tackle the issue of transition: what are the specific characteristics of our era, especially in the light of environmental risks? Thirdly we go on to explore the risk perceptions of Finnish environmental actors in the context of climate change.
2. The formation of the risk landscape By the notion of risk landscape we mean the cognitive model of an individual (or a group) by means of which he conceptualises the possibilities and values residing in the world. The cognitive mechanisms affecting the formation of the risk landscape has been captured for example by Paul Slovic and his associates [2,1]. In studying the acceptability of different technological projects, they managed to identify the dimensions effective in people’s perception of risks. These are: 앫 앫 앫 앫
distribution of costs and benefits; control; knowledge; and time.
The first dimension means that, in weighing the acceptability of some project, people
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tend to consider the distribution of costs and benefits, who is exposed to risks and who will be safe. The more unjust the pattern of distribution, the higher the perceived risk. The second dimension tells that the sense of control is of utmost importance. People are far more ready to accept risks that they feel are in their own control. If a project is perceived to be in someone else’s hands, it is crucial that this someone else is trusted. The weaker the trust in the institutions of environmental management, for example, the higher the perceived risks of environmental changes. Knowledge is a prominent component of risk landscapes, since most risks, especially those of current times, are theory-dependent. The networks of possible worlds in which risks reside exist only in relation to knowledge, and thus different knowledge systems produce different risk landscapes. Knowledge and trust are intimately related: the source of knowledge should be trusted when assessing the risk identified by that piece of knowledge. The distinction between empirical and theoretical knowledge relates systematically to risk assessment, as well. Empirical knowledge of an individual refers to those items he knows by perception and experience. Theoretical knowledge pertains to invisible things, entities whose existence and properties must be inferred. In human societies much of this theoretical knowledge is in the hands of experts, and available for lay people through experts only. To put it metaphorically, risks move through a tunnel of knowledge, transforming from barely known but threatening dangers into conceptualised risks. New technologies, for example, involve unknown components and hence their risks are perceived to be higher. The fourth and last dimension is time. Risks have temporal profiles; that is, they are situated in time as temporally extended entities. They have their origins, life spans, and their respective endings in time. The crucial question for an average individual assessing the temporal profiles of risks involved in any strategy concerns its relation to “here and now”. That is, according to empirical findings, people tend to value things differently when they differ temporally: things that are further away in the future are discounted in terms of costs and benefits. According to our assumption, the risk of climate change is a particularly interesting phenomenon that could be assessed in terms of these dimensions. It is partly unknown, its effects are out of control of ordinary people, and its temporal profile is far removed from the practices of everyday life. Time spans reaching beyond decades, not to mention centuries, have proved to be especially challenging for our cognitive apparatus, tuned as it is to think in terms of days, weeks and months. In the risk profile of late modernity, climate change signals the presence of high risks. The cognitive resources for people’s risk assessment are not limited to the dimensions of risk perception characterised above. In addition, societies have shared cultural models of risks, traditions of understanding through which possibilities and values are conceptualised. The cultural models of risks are temporal entities — they are born, flourish, and die out in changing social realities. They are shared, collective entities, and are used by individuals in conceptual operations like problem-solving. Moreover, they tend to crystallise in time; that is, their structures are formed in social interactions and hence they provide filters and models for individual cognitive models. Cultural models of risk are affected by such measures as risk management and damage control: the measures taken for the purpose of containing a hazard may end
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up in intensifying the risk. Finally, models of risk are intimately tied with social processes like the formation of identities and the distribution of power. The notion of cultural model invites us to conceptualise the actual environmental processes taking place in real societies as processes of construction. The cultural models of climate change, for example, are constructed in education, media, and other social interactions. The climate issue receives its meaning in these processes. In the remaining we shall look at how the risk landscape is formed in the information society. After that we shall investigate how the characteristics of risks, studied above, are reflected in expert views on climate change. Even though the dimensions of perceived risks are assumed to reflect lay people’s risk landscape, they will reveal systematic aspects of the expert views as well.
3. Information society and risk society: the era of transition Information society has been aptly characterised as a risk society [3]. It differs from the earlier societal formations on two grounds: it hosts new kinds of risks, and its essential properties are determined by risk-related activities like risk assessment and risk management. By ‘risk’ we mean the possibility of harm. Risks are properties of systems whose dynamics are probabilistic, and where therefore exist genuine possibilities. In addition, these systems involve cognitive agents who are capable of representing possibilities and are able to engage in valuation. At first sight, the ontological status of risks is that they are higher-level properties of complex systems that involve culturally groomed cognitive systems. This ontological setting lies behind so-called non-linear processes as well. The emergence of new risks is an example of nonlinear processes characteristic of information society. By ‘information risks’ we mean harmful possibilities which are realised (or actualised) in information technology, or generated by information technology. Information technology is here understood in a wide sense: the artefacts and the pertinent models which are used in gathering, producing, processing and utilising information. Thus, for example, a malfunction in a home computer when one has just found an interesting piece of information, is obviously an actualised information risk, whereas the feeling of incompetence experienced by an elder citizen when facing an automatic teller machine is an example of a risk generated by information technology. In addition to the above, all “ordinary risks” have an information component, which alters their nature and augments their harmful effects. Writing with a typewriter has some risks, but writing with a computer adds on novel dimensions: possibilities of losing the document, getting a headache and an overdose of electromagnetic radiation. The threat of global warming that generates stress due to its media coverage is another example of the information component of a risk. Evolutionary theory of cultural traits [4,5] provides an additional perspective into information risks: traits, be they cultural or biological, when they are subject to selection and scarcity of resources, fare better if they are variable. The uniformity
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of information technology and the real-time causal connections with global reach generate not only vulnerability, but also potential catastrophes. There is a growing tendency among many leading social scientists to emphasise the role of risks in the development of our late modern society [3,6,7]. The emergence of “risk society” means in essence that the distribution of risk, in contrast to the distribution of wealth, occupies an increasingly central position in the social and political processes of our societies. The distribution of risks takes place in a variety of different ways, which makes the recognition of the risk more difficult. However, we can distinguish three distinctive features that exemplify late modern order in the context of risk: 1. the separation of time and space as indicated in the process of globalisation and manifested in environmental risks; 2. the reinforcement of disembedding mechanisms as indicated in the social role of abstract systems and manifested in technological risks; and 3. the growth of social reflexivity as indicated in individualisation of modern identity and manifested in information risks. If we had to name a common denominator for all the material or social processes of late modern societies, it would no doubt be globalisation. Although the process of globalisation manifests itself in many ways (globalisation of market economy, globalisation of Western cultural values, globalisation of communication systems, etc.), the best evidence for the globalising character of modernity, we may argue, is offered by the risk potential of global environmental threats, also known as “global environmental change” [8]. These changes, aptly exemplified by human-induced global warming, reveal environmental threats whose consequences reach far beyond local confines, in either spatial or temporal terms [9]. The separation of time and space manifests itself as the world-wide spread of the impacts of actualised risks. Culprits are hard to pinpoint since there is no single source for the risk. In the case of greenhouse gas emissions, for example, the sources are distributed around the globe. Another example that reveals the nature of late modern order is the extent to which our everyday life is dependent upon systems we have hardly any control of. These disembedding mechanisms can be seen in operation when, for example, we fetch water from a tap instead of a well, or when we use a word-processing program from the net instead of using a typewriter. In all such instances we are relying on systems invented and maintained by experts. Usually we are unaware of the operation of these systems but should a technological risk affecting such a system actualise, resulting in system failure, we generally have to call upon an expert to solve the problem. The third aspect of the late modern order, increasing social reflexivity, is intimately linked with the concept of ‘information society’ and its social and cultural preconditions. The development of modern culture tends to emphasise the role of individual in the formation of modern identity. At the same time, as never before, our everyday life happens amidst a growing stream of (dis)information, which we must come to grips with. Yet, as we grow increasingly reflective and critical about the information
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thus cast upon us, the risk of individual interpretation acquires a major role in our society, in contrast to previous forms of societies where a more collective form of understanding prevailed. This ‘principle of doubt’, as it can be termed, will eventually introduce new difficulties to the formation of social coherence in society. Each of these developments requires novel social and individual resources to respond to existing and upcoming changes. The risk profile of late modernity challenges our abilities for risk aversion. Political strategies have to be developed to tackle environmental risks, social and technological strategies to face technological risks, and individual strategies to seize the risks stemming from information stream. To sum up, in this context the advent of information society means that rational strategies will have to be developed to counteract the risks inherent in late modernity, as outlined above. Information society may facilitate these strategies but it is not, as such, a solution to these risks.
4. Climate change as a future risk As we have already pointed out, in the risk landscape of late modernity, climate change manifests some of the properties that are peculiar to the risks of our times [10,11]. In this section, we are going to explore some of the characteristics of climate change and then reflect on some of the results of the empirical analysis drawn from interviews among Finnish climate change experts concerning the risk aspects of climate change. There are some distinctive features that characterise climate change and brings the whole question of harmful changes to the post-war economic and technological development of the world system. Climate change is a risk induced by escalation of the global industrial system, resulting in increasing amounts of greenhouse gas emissions. The turning point was in the early 1950s, when the use of fossil fuels, particularly coal, petroleum and gas, the primary sources of greenhouse gases, rose steeply almost simultaneously [12]. In 1993, world energy consumption was almost 50% higher than only 20 years before. Similarly, world demand for metals and minerals rose by 120% between 1961 and 1990. From 1960, global-energy-related CO2 emissions rose from 2.5 billion tonnes of carbon up to almost 6 billion tonnes in 1992 [13]. According to most evaluations, humankind has used more natural resources after the 1950s than during its whole previous history [14]. All of this leads to rising concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere which development, according to models by climate scientists, leads to harmful changes in the atmospheric system. Though ‘natural’ climatic changes have had significant impact on human systems throughout human history, it is only now that the possibility of anthropogenic interference on climate on the planetary scale can be assumed [15]. Though it is rather obvious to assume, on the basis of evidence which shows increasing trends in material and energy flows, that humans have an impact on climate, it has been rather a rocky road to channel the observed risk into a concerted political action. The political history of climate change is a history of conflicting interests, where assumed high stakes in terms of benefits and particularly the costs
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have made it hard to make progress [9]. However, due to accumulating evidence of the severe risks related to business-as-usual scenarios, and due to the persistence of some of parties in the negotiation process, the loose approach heralded by the humble beginning of climate negotiations known as the Framework Convention on Climate Change has grown to include features of regulatory approach. The making of the Kyoto Protocol with the determination to set quantified targets to all industrialised countries for all of their greenhouse gas emissions has brought the risk dimension of climate to a concrete political agenda [16]. In many ways, negotiation process seems to be a trade-off of two dimensions of risk: on the one hand there is a risk of escalating environmental hazards if emissions cannot be effectively reduced. On the other hand, there is a risk of high economic costs that cutting of the emission would bring particularly to those countries and industries that have material- and energy-intensive production patterns. It is here that we may look closer at our empirical data concerning the risk perceptions among environmentally influential actors in order to assess how their ‘informed’ view of climate change relates to the dimensions of risks explicated in Sections 2 and 3.2
5. The distribution of costs and benefits With respect to the distribution of costs and benefits the risk landscape of climate change had the following four features. Firstly, the problem with democratic management of the risk. Many of the respondents emphasised that the management of the risk of climate change could not be restricted to the hands of small elite, but that it should be discussed and handled collectively. This means that, to begin with, a sufficient amount of information concerning the cost of action and non-action should be produced. As any major climate policy action may bring substantial consequences to economies, the importance of objective information is obvious. On the basis of this information, then, the issue concerning the immediate and long-term costs could be brought to public discussion. This could then boost rational action strategies that could then be carried out by government, industry and non-governmental organisations. Secondly, the issue of balancing short-term and long-term costs and benefits. Respondents often expressed their concern that short-term cost will easily overweigh long-term benefits of the action. On the other hand, representatives of the industry pointed out that too rapid response would produce too high a risk for the national economy. This view was challenged by the notion that the business-as-usual response would make the overall costs much higher in the long term, when proportionally 2
Our study was run in 1998–1999. The empirical data were gathered by doing 36 semi-structured interviews among Finnish environmental experts dealing with issues of climate change. The interviewees included officers from Government, representatives of major Finnish industries interested in the development of climate change policy, politicians of the Parliament occupied by environmental issues, researchers working in this field, and, eventually, representatives of major environmental movements in Finland.
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more stringent regulations are expected to take place. Thirdly, some of the respondents noted that risks related to deteriorating natural resource base could not be equalled with the costs induced by action. This is particularly hot topic in Finland, where the majority of our gross domestic product (GDP) is generated by the use of natural resources, particularly that of forest. Some respondents conclude that the cost of action is still at most some 3% of the GDP, which makes up the same kind of effect as a standard economic recession. Thirdly, the risks related to economic investments. It was stated that environmental policy, in its essence, is decision-making under uncertainty and minimising the risks should form the basis for rational decision-making. In terms of climate policy, the argument goes, the risks to make wrong investments are minimal, since all major policy means, increasing energy efficiency and resource productivity or reforestation for example, are as such measures that are ecologically and economically feasible measures irrespective of the truthfulness of the global warming argument. Fourthly, the issue of threatening costs. Some of the respondents compared the case of climate change with the nuclear armament race and pointed out that, while the threat perceived in the latter case was rather hypothetical and was yet the reason to invest an immense amount of resources to the development of arms, in the case of climate policy the benefits for investments are much more obvious.
6. The control of risk With respect to our second risk dimension, the issue of controlling the risk, we found the following two characteristics. Firstly, the risks related to the poor prognosis of global management. Many of our respondents had a rather pessimistic view on achieving the control of global emissions through the international system. This was seen to be an extremely difficult task particularly because even if some common measures to curb emissions in the Western countries could be achieved, the real problem of participation in the long run is met with needed involvement of developing countries. Since the total amount of emission from industrialised countries is most likely going to be bypassed by the emissions of developing countries within the next decade, the real challenge is seen to generate the process by which fast-growing countries like China could be tied to mitigation process before it is too late. Secondly, the risks generated by market mechanisms. Some of our respondents noted that a sufficient reduction in emissions in the West needs not only the development of technical fixes but also structural changes and a radical shift in consumption patterns. This challenge is seen to be one of the hardest and complicated social challenges in the coming century in terms of risk control. Many respondents identified uncontrolled market mechanisms as the root cause for upward emission trends and called for political measures to redirect the market forces. This is, of course, the track that has been called for in the constitution of the Kyoto Protocol, where a number of measures, such as joint implementation, emissions trading and a clean development mechanism, serve as market-centred measures to combat climate
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change. However, there was not much trust in society’s ability to impose any major changes, at least not on a short-term basis, to the market system, since the control of these markets has apparently slipped out of the hands of politicians.
7. Knowledge and climate change The dimension of knowledge was dominated by the following themes. Firstly, the issues concerning the relationship of risk and knowledge in climate change. Many of our respondents noted that the real problem of social understanding of climate change lies in the profound uncertainties that are embedded in the present understanding of the phenomenon. Thus, the consciousness of the risk is paralleled with the relative ignorance of its real impacts. Moreover, with climate change, the division of empirical and theoretical knowledge becomes crucial. Since (anthropogenic) climate change can only be verified by certain abstract systems provided by experts, the empirical evidence obtained by individuals is restricted to the perception of its impacts. This situation provides a profound distinction for the lay knowledge and expert knowledge. Thus the high risk profile of climate change, evident in our data, derives from uncertainties still present in the science of climate change and is further fuelled by the eventual inability of lay people to obtain knowledge from the phenomenon itself. Secondly, the threat of misinformation and high stakes. Some of the respondents noted that due to uncertainties inherent in climate change science, making the assessment of the impacts for a particular country extremely difficult, there is a danger of consistent dissemination of misinformation. This risk is also prompted by the fact that in the climate change policy, high economic stakes are present, and thus a lot of conflicting interest may emerge. In this respect, some actors may have good reasons for disseminating highly partial and even wrong information.
8. The temporal profile of climate change Some respondents brought forward the assumption that risk assessment will also in the future be in a central role in the decision-making of climate policy, particularly because any 100% certain knowledge about climate change and of the human impact on that change may neither now nor in the future be attainable. Moreover, though all of the major model-generated scenarios concerning climate change show already now significant impacts of increased greenhouse gas emissions on the biosphere and human systems in the 100 year future perspective, these models can always be classified as “partial knowledge” simply because (1) the model is not and will not be perfect; and (2) even if they can simulate the present climate this does not guarantee that they will do so in respect to the future climate. Thus, the argument for businessas-usual behaviour before any certain information on the detrimental effects of greenhouse gas emissions on the global scale is misplaced, since this is not the terms through which we should assess the whole problem.
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Many of our respondents had the general understanding that the long time spans related to the risk of climate change has a certain detrimental effect on penetration of the issue to political decision-making due to a certain hazy look of the problem. Though there is a general acceptance of the magnitude of the risk, in the final consideration of the financial resources, however, this risk is often overrun by other, more urgent and more tangible needs. On the other hand, climate change was seen as one good example of those infrastructure projects, like the building of roads and railways, where long-term thinking in terms of investment and technological development is badly needed.
9. Conclusions In terms of the acceptability of the risk, climate change appears to pose such a challenge to the self-control of society, that no societal institution can adequately master it at present. However, there is a strong belief that control over climate change may be enhanced in time, as technological advances are made in the crucial fields of expertise, particularly within energy industries. In contrast to this technological optimism, the major threat to controllability is supposed to emerge from the rise of population growth, welfare and material consumption in the developing countries that will, at present trends, lead to intolerable growth of emissions. In the field of knowing, the knowledge of the eventual impacts of climate change is still very much partial and this seems to make the acceptability of risk even harder. However, as the threat of climate change is slowly going through the tunnel of knowledge, changing into more calculable and conceptualised risk, the public perception of this risk may change into two different directions: either the concern will wane, if clear evidence is provided to the effect that the anthropogenic climate change hypothesis is not correct, or it will dramatically increase if solid evidence of human impact is found and even perceived. As one of our respondents note, “it seems as if the existence of the problem is almost now proven, which means that the risk exists, will accelerate and we cannot do else but take this problem seriously”. The temporal aspect of climate change is a difficult question that reveals the complexity of risk assessment and its complicated relation to political decision-making. On one hand, the assumption of climate change as a long-term future risk that may realise itself only after a considerable time, clearly diminishes its value as a problem that needs to be tackled immediately. On the other hand, our respondents brought forward that the relevance of the temporal aspect is manifested in the multiple connections of risk assessment to economic decision-making, where long-term considerations in terms of investments need every essential, even if partial information about the future. To sum up, the era of transition has brought about changes that challenge our cognitive and cultural resources of risk perception. The world is ever more complicated, thanks to our technology and science. In order to understand, survive and even manage the future, we need to study two things: the perceived risk landscapes of distinct groups, experts and lay people, and the real properties of this world.
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