Sustainable uncertainty: Normalising the ecological state of exception

Abstract

Modern economic rationality is an instrumental rationality geared towards the idea of 'progress': the continuous need for wealth production (in quantitative terms). This rationality underscores our political and legal order (amongst others). Law and politics can be said to serve the interests of progress. However, we have become increasingly aware of the side effects this rationality brings about. These side effects can be conceptualised, following the German social theorist Ulrich Beck, in terms of 'modern risks'; they are manufactured uncertainties. Global warming can be considered a modern risk. It is becoming more and more plausible that modern economic rationality and ways of wealth production are contributing factors to global warming and, hence, climate change. It has an impact on water issues in the broadest sense. Climate change poses a threat to the natural environment and carries the potential of catastrophic social consequences. To deal with it implies managing its ecological and social side effects. The question is how. The side effects of economic rationality are countered by another rationality, which one could characterise as 'security' or 'safety' rationality. With this approach we are considered to be in a 'state of exception' - a situation out of the ordinary that demands attention with an aim to return to, or re-establish, the ordinary. The state of exception, as a theoretical concept, suggests an increase of power structures in times of crisis. What is new is that global warming and climate change can be considered as an ecological state of exception leading to a new normality that demands different ways as to how we want to live together in our social and natural environment. In this article I seek to explore the idea of an ecological state of exception as the 'normal' state of affairs, demanding a new rationality and, consequently, ask to what extent a reconsideration of self-evident assumptions that underscore modem contemporary life, economic, political and social is necessary and desired.