Fritz Reusswig

Syndromes of Global Change: a qualitative modelling approach to assist global environmental management

A novel transdisciplinary approach to investigate Global Change (GC) is presented. The approach rests on the decomposition of the intrigue dynamics of GC into patterns of civilization–nature interactions (“syndromes”) by an iterative scientific process of observations, data and system theoretical analyses, and modelling attempts. We illustrate the approach by a detailed analysis of the Sahel Syndrome, which describes the rural poverty driven overuse of natural resources. The investigation is performed by (i) identifying relevant “symptoms” and interlinkages which are characteristics for this pattern, and (ii) a qualitative model representing the internal dynamics of the essential flywheel. The geographical patchwork of the regions affected by the syndrome which is obtained by global data analysis, proves the high global relevance of this pattern. The qualitative model is employed for an evaluation of basic policy strategies debated in the context of rural poverty driven environmental degradation. It turns out that a mixed policy of combating poverty and introducing soil preserving agricultural techniques and practices is most promising to tackle the syndrome dynamics.

Bürgerinitiativen gegen Windkraftanlagen und der Aufschwung rechtspopulistischer Bewegungen

Trotz allgemein hoher Zustimmung zur Energiewende mehren sich die Proteste gegen ihre Umsetzungsprojekte, allen voran gegen Windkraftanlagen. Parallel dazu hat sich in den letzten Jahren mit der Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD) eine Partei im politischen System Deutschlands etabliert, die nicht nur durch ihre rechtspopulistischen Haltungen in Bezug auf die Fluchtlingsdebatte auffallt, sondern sich auch offen gegen die Energiewende und den weiteren Ausbau von erneuerbaren Energien, in hohem Mase Windkraftanlagen, positioniert. Eine eigene bundesweit durchgefuhrte Reprasentativbefragung im Dezember 2016 hat ergeben, dass rund 44 % derjenigen, die die Energiewende ablehnen, der AfD im Falle einer Bundestagswahl ihre Stimme geben wurden. Zwar zeigen sich bei genauerer Betrachtung der Argumente von Burgerinitiativen und dem Programm der AfD nur wenige inhaltliche Uberschneidungen. Parallelen werden jedoch sichtbar, wenn man die Vorgehensweisen und Argumente auf ihren populistischen Gehalt hin uberpruft.

The New Climate Change Discourse: A Challenge for Environmental Sociology

The chapter gives an analysis of the shifting social discourse on climate change in Germany and the U.S. Climate Change Discourses (CCD) are defined as thematically focused coupled sequences of arguments that different social actors use in order to influence one another or their social contexts in order to improve the chances of their resource endowments, interests, and worldviews to prevail in collective decision making processes. The major change in the recent CCD is seen as a shift from a framework of understanding the Earth System to a framework of decision making under uncertainties. The traditional (and in part ideological) opposition of mitigation and adaptation policies will have give way to an optimal mix of both. The chapter gives empirical evidence for that analysis from mass media coverage, public opinion, policy making, and the business sector. This shift occurs currently more markedly in Germany than in the U.S., will probably catch up across the Atlantic soon. The final section sketches the outlines of a low-carbon society and discusses some major challenges to environmental sociology such as more systemic views, active engagement in IPCC’s working group III, risk analysis of climate solutions, critical assessments of socio-technical experiments.

Rising Capitalism, Emerging Middle-Classes and Environmental Perspectives in China: A Weberian Approach

This chapter addresses the recent growth of the Chinese middle class from a Weberian point of view. Starting from a re-appreciation of Weber’s Confucianism study, a comprehensive framework for analyzing China’s economic success is presented, including political, economic, cultural, and environmental aspects. According to Weber, ideas and interests have to be balanced against each other in social analysis. The actual and changing role of Confucian values in emerging political and economic institutions is discussed. The chapter assesses the size and composition of the Chinese middle class, and discusses the consequences for consumption and the environment. Although consumerism in China is still confined to a rather minor social segment, its actual growth rate leads to the conclusion that by 2020, China’s consumer market will have reached the size of the one that most Western European countries display today.

Sustainability Transitions Through the Lens of Lifestyle Dynamics

Satisfying an ever-increasing consumer demand puts a strain on the environment as increasing amounts of space, material and energy are needed (Guinee 2002; Princen et al. 2002; Redclift 1996; Stern et al. 1997; Shove and Warde 1998). Material intensive consumption is accompanied by increasing amounts of waste and emissions. According to our own assessment, about 19 million tons of industrial CO2 emissions (25% of the total) can be attributed to direct lifestyle and consumption related human activities, most of which occur in the industrialized world, but with a growing share from rapidly developing countries such as China or India (Reusswig et al.).1 Despite their still (very) low level of material consumption and related emissions on a per capita basis, the total carbon footprint of these emerging economies has reached significant levels. 2 Due to catch-up processes and globalization effects, the dynamics and the environmental effects of modern consumer society is no longer confined to its historical region of origin: the United States (US), Western Europe, and – more recently – Japan. Economic growth, political modernization and cultural globalization do not only lead to the overall growth of resource use and emissions, they also change the internal composition of societies. Myers and Kent (2003) account for 1,059 million additional people having joined the global consumer class. This includes the expanding middle class in countries such as China, India or Brazil (Bhalla et al. 2003; Consumers International 1997; MGI 2006, 2007; Robison and Goodman 1996; Sridharan 2004; van Wessel 2004). Global studies show that the propensity to consumerism and the associated dreams and hopes – often fuelled by advertising and other global mass media products – of the emerging consumer class fuel future production and consumption processes especially in countries with a higher proportion of poor people (Environics 2002).

Sociological Tasks in View of the Transition to Post-carbon Societies. Also a Comment to Michael Redclift

Why have sociologists been so reluctant in analysing the carbon lockin of modern societies, and why is their contribution so weak when it comes to delineating the contours of a postcarbon society? What – if it managed to change this uncomfortable situation – would be the contribution of a sociology that actively explores such a postcarbon society? And what would such a change-conducive sociology itself look like? These are some of the major questions that Michael Redclift deals with in his opening article. He does so for quite some time now (cf. Redclift 2009, 2010, 2011), and the fact that he has to repeat himself indicates that sociologists have not really responded rapidly to what he has to say. But they should – his questions are more than appropriate. They are urgent. And they must hurt every upright environmental sociologist. But the problem is less that environmental sociology has been ‘sub-optimal’ in delivering their bit to the possible coming of a post-carbon society. The main problem is that sociology has an even poorer track record. The analysis of the carbon lock-in of modern society, as well as a future oriented look at possible pathways out of it –envisioning a postcarbon society – clearly transcend the domain of environmental sociology. Both refer to the very basic principles of modernity, their historical making, their current mechanisms of reproduction, and their critical social

Die globale Umwelt als Wille und Vorstellung. Zur transdisziplinären Erforschung des Globalen Wandels

Die Welt ist unsere Vorstellung - und wird es immer mehr. Die Welt ist Produkt unseres Willens - und wird auch dies immer starker. Schopenhauers beiden grosen Thesen, erstmals niedergeschrieben in seinem fruhen Hauptwerk von 1818, sie erfullen sich in einem Mase und in einer Richtung, die auch dem pessimistischen Philosophen niemals in den Sinn gekommen sind. In den letzten Jahren haufen sich Bucher, Bilder und Modelle, in denen vom Weltraum aus auf die Erde geblickt wird. Der „Blaue Planet“ schwebt dann vor dem schwarzen Hintergrund kosmischer Nacht und zeigt Meere, Kontinente und Wolken. Satelliten- und Infrarotaufnahmen fokus-sieren Regionen und beobachten sie auch jenseits des furs menschliche Auge Sichtbaren. Ein weltweites Netz von Forschungseinrichtungen und -programmen hat sich uber den Globus gelegt und unterzieht ihn einer hochtechnisierten, computergestutzten Dauerbeobachtung. In den Rechen- und Analysezentren drehen sich unablassig kleine Globen und simulieren diverse Erdsystemzustande unter dem Einflus hypothetisch sich verandernder Randbedingungen. Thematische Weltkarten werden erstellt, Weltmodelle gebastelt und Szenarien diskutiert. Diese Beobachtungen, Messungen, Simulationen und Analysen der Global-Change-Forschung werden zu wissenschaftlichen Berichten zusammengefast. Tenor der meisten dieser Berichte ist: Die naturlichen Systemkompartimente des Systems Erde andern sich; die Ursachen dafur liegen primar im Verantwortungsbereich des Menschen: die meisten dieser Anderungen beruhren nicht nur Funktion und Bestand naturlicher Okosysteme, sondern beeintrachtigen die Lebens- und Zukunftsfahigkeit des Menschen selbst. Rasches Handeln ist geboten. Als normative Leit- und Zielvorstellung dieses Handelns dient haufig das Konzept Sustainable Development, das als Nachhaltige Entwicklung ubersetzt wird und einen aufrechterhaltbaren Fortschritt der menschlichen Zivilisation in „friedlicher Koexistenz“ mit der Natur sicherstellen soll.

New Governance Challenges and Conflicts of the Energy Transition: Renewable Electricity Generation and Transmission as Contested Socio-technical Options

The emergence of renewable energy sources (RES) has broadened the scope of socio-technical options for energy systems. While the conventional fossil-nuclear system has been a highly centralized one, both technological and in economic respects, RES can be implemented in a highly decentralized manner—but can also fit to the traditional centralized pathway. This new option space is associated with many conflicts. The paper reconstructs one basic conflict by conceptualizing future energy options as a strategic action field with incumbents and challengers as stylized key actors. We illustrate this approach by various cases from Germany, Austria, the Mediterranean, and China. The paper argues against a popular stylization of the strategic action field of RES along the dichotomy of centralized versus decentralized options and sketches a mixed future as the more plausible—and more desirable—one. The paper ends by sketching the design of a global super smart grid as the backbone for such a mixed option.

European Citizens, Carbon Footprints and Their Determinants—Lifestyles and Urban Form

In this study we explore the differences between carbon footprints of private households across three European countries. The assessment of CO2 emissions for housing, mobility and food is based on a survey of 844 inhabitants of rural and urban areas in Scotland, Czech Republic and Germany. The relevance of urban form, household structure, socio-demographics and lifestyle characteristics is investigated in relation to area specific conditions that influence the energy demand but also determine its enviormental impact. We can see significant differences in the carbon footprint across the case studies, which can to a certain extend be related to varying income levels in Scotland, Czech Republic and Germany. But of course, there are other influencing factors on different levels: different structural factors, such as the respective energy mix of a country, the availability of district heating and eco-friendly products such as green electricity, the urban form and household structure. Without the support of the built environment and public institutions, it is mostly difficult for individual households to translate their pro-environmental preferences into real behavior, but the data also reveals that the actors’ environmental values do have a direct influence on the level of CO2 emissions in some areas like food and flight emissions.

Chapter 8 Adapting to what? Climate Change Impacts on Indian Megacities and the Local Indian Climate Change Discourse

Purpose – Adaptation to climate change requires that the population at risk and decision makers in various sectors become aware of the possible detrimental impacts in order to take whatever action is needed, especially in highly vulnerable countries and regions. In order to assess the climate change and impact awareness in a particularly vulnerable area – the Indian city Hyderabad, located within a semiarid region – we wanted to learn more about the local climate discourse, in particular the daily newspaper coverage of climate change and weather extremes. Methodology/approach – After having looked at the Indian climate change discourse (CCD) in general, based on literature review, we were studying the local public CCD, based on the in-depth analysis of two English language daily newspapers, and three Telugu (the dominant local language) daily newspapers, covering the period of 2008–2009. This qualitative and quantitative analysis was completed by two expert interviews with local journalists. Findings – We find that the more recent Indian CCD has shifted if compared to the dominant argumentation pattern of the period before, as reported in other analyses. While the former discourse was characterized by the scheme “the poor/developing countries suffer from anthropogenic climate change caused by the industrialized countries,” the recent Indian CCD has become more differentiated, taking into account both impacts elsewhere, and, most notably, conceding a (limited) responsibility of countries like India. On a local level, while reports on weather extremes are very common, we find that local newspapers of Hyderabad do not provide a link between these extreme events and (global) climate change. Research limitations – Our discourse analysis could only cover a short time period of a local CCD, leaving open the questions of (a) its further development, and (b) how things might stand in other places in India. Furthermore it would be necessary to complement our study by analyses of the impact of mass media reporting on peoples attitudes and behavior. Originality/value of paper – Given the importance of public participation in adaptation measures, it is crucial to know if and how the wider public and the majority of the nonexpert public administration (which needs to be involved) understands the causes, potential impacts, and possible adaptive action in the face of climate change. This chapter provides a necessary (though not sufficient) element for that assessment. The findings can help to identify weaknesses, and thus to give hints how to improve the adaptive capacity in places like Hyderabad (India).