Catherine Butler

From ‘flood defence’ to ‘flood risk management’: exploring governance, responsibility, and blame

In the UK there has been a gradual transition in both the framing of flooding as a policy issue and the strategies employed to achieve policy objectives. This has involved a widely recognised shift from policies of ‘flood defence’ to ‘flood risk management’ (FRM), entailing both changes in approaches to FRM—such as greater advocacy of soft flood management approaches—and redistributions of responsibility—including more emphasis on the responsibilities of private citizens. In this paper, we utilise interviews with professionals working in flood risk (total participant n = 44) and discussion groups (participant n = 50) with public(s) that live in one of three UK cities which experienced major flooding in 2007 (Sheffield, Oxford, Gloucester) to examine some of the ways in which these policy transitions are being defined, negotiated, and contested. Drawing on governmentality theory, we reexamine contemporary shifts in FRM and open up discussion around the potential for emergent difficulties connected to the contemporary emphasis on relations of responsibility.

Creating a national citizen engagement process for energy policy

This paper examines some of the science communication challenges involved when designing and conducting public deliberation processes on issues of national importance. We take as our illustrative case study a recent research project investigating public values and attitudes toward future energy system change for the United Kingdom. National-level issues such as this are often particularly difficult to engage the public with because of their inherent complexity, derived from multiple interconnected elements and policy frames, extended scales of analysis, and different manifestations of uncertainty. With reference to the energy system project, we discuss ways of meeting a series of science communication challenges arising when engaging the public with national topics, including the need to articulate systems thinking and problem scale, to provide balanced information and policy framings in ways that open up spaces for reflection and deliberation, and the need for varied methods of facilitation and data synthesis that permit access to participants’ broader values. Although resource intensive, national-level deliberation is possible and can produce useful insights both for participants and for science policy.

Exploring early public responses to geoengineering

Proposals for geoengineering the Earths climate are prime examples of emerging or ‘upstream’ technologies, because many aspects of their effectiveness, cost and risks are yet to be researched, and in many cases are highly uncertain. This paper contributes to the emerging debate about the social acceptability of geoengineering technologies by presenting preliminary evidence on public responses to geoengineering from two of the very first UK studies of public perceptions and responses. The discussion draws upon two datasets: qualitative data (from an interview study conducted in 42 households in 2009), and quantitative data (from a subsequent nationwide survey (n=1822) of British public opinion). Unsurprisingly, baseline awareness of geoengineering was extremely low in both cases. The data from the survey indicate that, when briefly explained to people, carbon dioxide removal approaches were preferred to solar radiation management, while significant positive correlations were also found between concern about climate change and support for different geoengineering approaches. We discuss some of the wider considerations that are likely to shape public perceptions of geoengineering as it enters the media and public sphere, and conclude that, aside from technical considerations, public perceptions are likely to prove a key element influencing the debate over questions of the acceptability of geoengineering proposals.

Risk analysis and climate change

There is an increasing emphasis on risk-based approaches in the scientific and economic assessment of climate change, exemplified by the Stern Report and IPPC 4th Assessment. In the United Kingdom, risk discourse also increasingly dominates environmental policy-making and governance. The use of risk assessment, management and communication practices in climate change governance and policy is critically examined, utilising an interpretation of ‘risk’ as a knowledge practice for informing decision-making and an instrument for governing populations. In elucidating current risk practices, alongside key critiques and varied proposals for revised approaches to risk characterisation, both the capacities and limitations of a risk basis for policy aimed at delivering adaptation and deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions are examined. While contemporary risk approaches align well with dominant political rationalities in affluent Western democracies, they have serious limitations as a basis for the delivery of aggressive climate policy aims.

Nuclear Power After Japan: The Social Dimensions

novEmBEr/DEcEmBEr 2011 www.EnvironmEntmagazinE.org EnvironmEnt 3 Following the declaration of a nuclear emergency in Japan, questions surrounding the use of nuclear power have been brought back to the forefront of public debate. The 9.0 magnitude earthquake and following tsunami that struck Japan on March 11, 2011, had devastating consequences for many people. The subsequent problems encountered at Japan’s nuclear power plants, and particularly at Fukushima Daiichi, have raised questions about the future of nuclear energy worldwide. by Catherine Butler, Karen A. Parkhill, and Nicholas F. Pidgeon Nuclear Power After Japan:

Energy consumption and everyday life : Choice, values and agency through a practice theoretical lens

In policy and research, there is increasing recognition that the scale of transitions necessary for a low carbon society will require significant reductions in energy demand. Concurrently, advancing knowledge about energy practices has been highlighted as important in developing a basis for the delivery of less energy intensive configurations. In this article, we examine interview (participant n = 53) and visual (photographic) data collected across two UK communities to develop understanding of energy consumption as part of everyday life. We conduct our analysis through a practice theoretical lens, in particular drawing on Bourdieu’s concepts, to develop social theoretically informed interpretations of energy demand and its constitution through daily practice. We conclude reflecting on the implications of our analysis for conceptualising societal change and the role of policy in reducing energy demand.

Disconnected futures: exploring notions of ethical responsibility in energy practices

This article aims to explore peoples connections to or disconnections from the future and the implications of this for their perspectives on equity, justice and ethical issues related to energy consumption. Everything people do is embedded and extended in time across the modalities of past, present and future, making time an inescapable aspect of our existence, yet one that often remains invisible and intangible. Debates about energy and environmental equity have raised questions about the extent to which people today should bear responsibility for the consequences of their behaviour for future generations. Seemingly intractable difficulties have been identified, however, in peoples abilities to connect their present actions with their potential future consequences and thus take on such responsibilities. Drawing on data from interviews about energy consumption practices, this article explores whether peoples living temporal extensions through younger generations of their families influence their views and practices around energy use in both the present and anticipated future. Through exploring these issues we offer a contribution to the ethical debate around responsibility for future generations.

Landscapes of Threat? Exploring Discourses of Stigma around Large Energy Developments

Abstract In UK policy, concerns about climate change, energy security and system renewal, combine to create an imperative for transitions in landscapes of energy production. Some of the energy developments that will be central in these transitions are imbued with historical associations of, for example, ‘risk and threat’, which have been asserted to potentially lead to the stigmatisation of place and people in place. This paper explores stigmatisation through an analysis of data from interviews across two case sites in close proximity to existing and proposed energy developments. We show how our participants engage with or resist the notion that they are dwelling in ‘landscapes of threat’ and argue that stigma is a multi-dimensional phenomenon that is differentially encountered and experienced even within similar areas. In concluding, we argue that whilst people may experience stigmatising effects, this does not necessarily lead to them feeling stigmatised.

Energy biographies: narrative genres, lifecourse transitions and practice change

The problem of how to make the transition to a more environmentally and socially sustainable society poses questions about how such far-reaching social change can be brought about. In recent years, lifecourse transitions have been identified by a range of researchers as opportunities for policy and other actors to intervene to change how individuals use energy, taking advantage of such disruptive transitions to encourage individuals to be reflexive toward their lifestyles and how they use the technological infrastructures on which they rely. Such identifications, however, employ narratives of voluntary change that take an overly optimistic view of how individuals experience lifecourse transitions and ignore effects of experiences of unresolved or unsuccessful transitions. Drawing on interview data from the Energy Biographies project at Cardiff University, we explore three case studies where the effects of such unresolved transitions are significant. Using the concept of liminal transition as developed by Victor Turner, we examine instances where “progressive” narratives of energy use reduction clash with other “narrative genres” used to make sense of change. Such clashes show how narratives that view lifecourse transitions as opportunities ignore the challenges that such transitions may pose to efforts to construct or sustain identities.

‘I’m not a tree hugger, I’m just like you’: changing perceptions of sustainable lifestyles

For many in the Western world, there is increasing recognition of the fundamentally unsustainable nature of everyday actions and modes of consumption that form part of normal life. Some individuals attempt to challenge current ways of consuming and living in order to address these underlying issues. However, these efforts often continue to be positioned as unusual or unconventional, meaning that adopting sustainable lifestyles may be subject to wider negative perceptions. At the same time, some forms of action towards sustainable ways of living are becoming increasingly normalised as more people make moves towards sustainable consumption. Drawing on data from the qualitative longitudinal Energy Biographies project, we consider the experiences of those who describe their efforts to live sustainably, the relationship between sustainability and normality, and the implications of this in a context of fundamental trends towards unsustainable social systems.