1st Edition
Intergenerational Democracy, Environmental Justice and the Case of Nuclear Waste
This book explores the interplay between intergenerational justice and intra-generational justice using nuclear waste management as a consistent case to explore these themes.
Lee Towers and Matthew Cotton examine the issue of intergenerational justice from a social scientific perspective, drawing on central case studies of nuclear waste management in Canada, Finland and the United Kingdom. They connect indigenous philosophies and notions of justice with the concept of intergenerational democracy, advocating for better inclusion of youth and elders in decision-making that effects their wellbeing. As such, the book’s primary objectives are fourfold:
• To assess whether trade-offs between intergenerational and intragenerational justice are necessary, and if so, what these trade-offs are and how they might be resolved.
• To critically assess dominant western liberal philosophical approaches that shape contemporary intergenerational justice thinking in policy and practice, and consider alternatives drawn from anthropology and indigenous philosophies.
• To assess how far our current capitalist system can achieve substantive forms of justice.
• To critically examine three nuclear waste management case studies and assess how far these achieve environmental and energy justice and how they exemplify tensions between inter and intragenerational justice.
This short, accessible volume will be of great interest to students and scholars of energy, environmental justice and ethics.
Introduction
Defining Intergenerational Justice
Three Features of Intergenerational Justice
Children as Proxies of Future Generations
Indigenous Societies and the World System
Humanity, Ethnoclass, Ability, Gender, and Sexuality
Book Outline
Part One – Intergenerational justice dilemmas
Chapter 1: The philosophical challenge of intergenerational justice
Philosophical challenges and concepts in intergenerational justice
Can future people have rights? The non-identity problem
What obligations do we hold to future generations? The problem of reciprocity
The weighting of future obligations – the issue of social discounting
Sufficientarianism, or is enough, enough?
Environmental Rights
Ontological challenges
Conclusions
Chapter 2: Alternative philosophical traditions
Social Relations of the Gift
Indigenous Perspectives on Justice and Time
Defining the Human Across Deep Time
The Over-determination of Man
Conclusions – a new/old subjectivity for intergenerational justice
Chapter 3: Mainstream Economics and Scarce Justice
Generational Wealth Transfers
Trading Justice
The Economics of the Anthropocene
Conclusions
Chapter 4: Abundant Justice and Democracy
Intergenerational Dilemmas
Children and Young People as Future Generational Proxies
Intergenerational Democracy
Media Framings of Youth Protestors
Youth as Proxies
The UN Convention on the Rights of Children
The Intergenerational Capability Approach
Future Studies, Decoloniality, and Backcasting
Mainstream Future Studies
Backcasting Decolonised?
Conclusions
Part Two – Nuclear Waste and Intergenerational Democracy
Chapter 5: Critical Nuclear Concepts
Nuclear Landscapes & Communities
Peripheralisation
Energopower
Nuclear Colonialism
Conclusions
Chapter 6: Canada and the Nuclear Waste Management Organisation
Context and Histories
NWMO – Aims, Scope and Assumptions
The Search for a GDF Site and Implementation
Conclusions
Chapter 7: The World’s First GDF – Finland
Context and History
Aims, Scope and Assumptions of NWMOs in Finland
STUK
TVO & Fortum
Posiva
Shared Assumptions
Implementation of the Most Advanced GDF in the World
Finland’s Search for a GDF
Media Representations and Consumption
Intragenerational and Intergeneration Justice and Finland’s GDF
Conclusions
Chapter 8: The United Kingdom and Nuclear Power and Waste
Context and history of nuclear technologies in the United Kingdom
Period one – Economic and Military Securitisation
Period 2. Nuclear energy expansion and the recognition of waste as an environmental concern
Period 3. The Deliberative Turn
Period 4. Climate change securitisation
Current UK Nuclear Waste Policy
Implementation of the GDF
Expanding Costs and Expanding Inventories
Democratic Deficits and the Nuclear
Conclusion
Conclusion: Justice for All
Nuclear Waste Management and Justice
Distributional Justice
Procedural Justice
The Justice of Recognition
The Justice of Redress and Reparation
Ghosts of Seppo and Western Science
The Darkness of the Grave or the Womb?
References
Index
Biography
Lee Towers is a postdoctoral researcher working at Teesside University looking into aspects of intra and intergenerational justice and nuclear waste solutions. He holds a PhD in applied social sciences from Brighton University. This PhD explored energy justice with a focus on community energy organisations and their work on energy poverty and climate mitigation in the UK. Previous published work includes an examination of community energy work on reducing energy poverty in the UK privatised energy system and an exploration of the intergenerational aspects of the pandemic published by Brighton University. His current postdoctoral position is funded by the Nuclear Waste Services.
Matthew Cotton is Professor of Environmental Justice and Public Policy in the School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Law at Teesside University. He holds a PhD in Environmental Science from the University of East Anglia. His research explores the social and ethical dimensions of technology development and environmental planning, and the effective involvement of stakeholders in questions of socio-economic and ecological justice. His previous published works on these topics include the monographs: Virtual Reality, Empathy and Ethics, Nuclear Waste Politics (Routledge), Ethics and Technology Assessment, and co-edited volumes: Governing Shale Gas (Routledge) and Engaging Environmental Justice. His research in the field of environmental justice is funded by Nuclear Waste Services, Research England, The Economic and Social Research Council, Euratom, The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, and the National Institute for Public Health Research.
