Karl Georg Høyer

The Emperor's Green Clothes: Growth, Decoupling, and Capitalism

In 1987, the World Commission on Environment and Development (often called the Brundtland Commission after its chairwoman, former Norwegian Prime Minister, Gro Harlem Brundtland) launched its repor...

The ecological traces of growth: economic growth, liberalization, increased consumption—and sustainable urban development?

Using the development of the building stock and physical infrastructure as an example, this article highlights the difficulties in combining continuous economic growth in wealthy countries with the requirements of environmentally sustainable development. There are clear limits as to how far we can get by means of ‘eco-efficiency’, and the effect of a transition to less environmentally harmful types of consumption is not sufficient if the consumption volume keeps on increasing. This is particularly evident for societal processes such as the construction of buildings and the development of physical infrastructure. Increased consumption is both a result of and a precondition for economic growth. The development of the building stock and physical infrastructure in cities is a case showing that economic growth—at any rate, in the longer term—can hardly be consistent with the preservation of species, ecosystems and food-production resources. The growth in the building stock also makes it increasingly difficult to limit energy use and reduce carbon–dioxide emissions. Copyright

Interdisciplinarity, Ecology and Scientific Theory

Abstract Interdisciplinarity has been a key term in the ecological debate ever since its advent in the early 1960s. The paper addresses these historical links and how the two terms ‘interdisciplinary’ and ‘ecology’ have influenced each other. The later concept ‘sustainable development’ is also truly interdisciplinary, including physical, biological, socio-economic and cultural, as well as normative, mechanisms, contexts and effects operating at scales ranging from the microscopic to the macroscopic. Policies to promote sustainable development need to be based on the type of interdisciplinary thinking that has been advocated for several decades within the ecological debate. This applies not least to research into the sustainability aspects of urban development, the case discussed in this paper. Despite longstanding requests for interdisciplinarity, the development within the academic world has proceeded in the opposite direction. Many of the most influential metatheoretical perspectives virtually prohibit, or at best strongly discourage, the inclusion of insights about certain parts of reality. Here, critical realism could play a very important role as an underlabourer of interdisciplinarity.

A Conference Tourist and his Confessions: An Essay on a Life with Conference Tourism, Aeromobility and Ecological Crisis

This essay focuses on conference tourism, aeromobility and ecological crisis. It is mostly based on the authors own diary notes—participatory observations—from many years of travelling to and fro and participating at international research conferences. Conference tourism is in this context mainly considered to belong to leisure time, a view elaborated on in the article. Crucial concepts are: grobalization, aeromobility, life in corridors, something-nothing continuum, all analysed and conveyed within a humour–tragedy tradition, much used in Norwegian ecophilosophy. The essay claims conference tourism to be as globalized as most other major forms of tourism; it is part of the globalization of academia, and it serves to make academics players in the processes of grobalization, which is the sociologist George Ritzers term. Conference tourism is a global industry where competition on a global market is an important factor. Along a something–nothing continuum, it belongs to the nothing end, as the grobalization it is part of. Still, it definitely leads to something, in the ecological systems. The corridors of aeromobility are closed to the sides in every respect, also regarding the possibilities to experience effects on ecology. A claim made in the essay is that there is no other form of mobility bringing with it a similar seriousness of ecological problems, not the least regarding climate change. Few other human activities entail larger differences in ecological impacts between the highly mobile global elite and the vast relatively immobile majority of the world population.

Alternative fuels and sustainable mobility: is the future road paved by biofuels, electricity or hydrogen?

This paper compares 16 alternative energy chains in a Well-to-Wheel analysis including three indicators: energy use, emissions of climate gases and emissions of local/regional pollutants. The analysis includes a private car which uses natural gas, biological fuels, electricity and hydrogen, respectively. The analysis shows that an alternative witch scores favourably on one indicator often scores unfavourably on other indicators. Sustainable mobility, however, requires favourable scores on all indicators. Thus, sustainable mobility must combine three different approaches: the efficiency approach - which includes the use of alternative energy - the substitution approach and the reduction approach.

The battle of batteries: a history of innovation in alternative energy cars

The paper gives a global view on the historical development of electrical cars. It is a history described in five major waves; the first one starting about 1835 and the last one ending about 2000. With two cases, important aspects of the two last waves are described in detail. The cases are the French VEL car and the Norwegian Think car. They have had their more specific setbacks. Problems in electrochemistry have caused important limitations, as they have through the whole history of electrical cars. This is the background for the paper title: The Battle of Batteries.

Ecophilosophy in a world of crisis : critical realism and the Nordic contributions

1. Introductory Perspectives. By: (Roy Bhaskar),Karl G. Hoyer and Petter Naess, 2. Critical realism in resonance with Nordic ecophilosophy: ecophilosophical themes in the development of critical realism By: Roy Bhaskar, 3. Nature, Technology and Environmental Crisis By: Arne Johan Vetlesen, 4. Towards an Ecophilosophy. The Nordic Contributors, By: Karl G. Hoyer, 5. A Biosophic Perspective. Humans as a Tragic Species, By: Peter Wessel Zapffe, 6. The Deep Ecological Movement: Some Philosophical Aspects By: Arne Naess, 7. Gaia versus Servoglobe By: Sigmund Kvaloy Setereng, 8. The Myths of Progress, By: Georg Henrik von Wright, 9. The Extension of Time and the Order of Things By: Torsten Hagerstrand, 10. Human Rights and Ecology as Premises for Practical Standpoints By: Jon Wetlesen, 11. From Ecophilosophy to Degrowth,By: Karl G. Hoyer and Petter Naess, 12. Ecophilosophy, Precaution, and Theory of Science, By: Karl G. Hoyer, 13. Between Critical Realism and Nordic Ecophilosophy, By: Trond Jakobsen, 14. Selected titles, published in English, By: Karl G. Hoyer and Petter Naess.

Combining Stationary and Mobile Energy Requirements: The Importance of the Meso-level in Sustainable Urban Development

This paper addresses the superior issue of systems for the achievement of very low carbon and very low energy urban buildings. In many larger European cities contemporary major urban renewal is carried out through development of large building and housing complexes, either as separate renewal projects or as parts of more extensive urban renewal programs. This is taking place in what we may term a meso-level in urban development. Besides the importance in current large city development, the focus on large urban building and housing complexes may play crucial functions in the broader context of urban sustainability. These building complexes are major nodes for the generation of many forms of stationary as well as mobile (transport) energy use, giving a context for the development of innovative systems both for increased energy efficiency and utilization of alternative energy sources. As large energy use nodes in the urban structures, the building and housing complexes give particularly favorable conditions for development of common renewable energy systems for stationary purposes; however, also conditions favorable to the implementation of systems to substantially reduce energy use and increase alternative energies in various forms of transportation.