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Utopias and Environmentalist Ambivalence Concerning Science

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Environmental Futures

Abstract

Environmental protest1 is often hard work. Among other factors, within a group, the variety of ideas about what local protest and political pressure is aiming for, can made civic action frustrating. Protesters fighting local infrastructure plans often find that value arguments do not always make much of an impression on decision makers. They turn to what they think would be a more authoritative source of support for their case, namely a scientifically informed environmentalist discourse. This chapter looks at how such a discourse, in fact, serves to dampen debate about substantive political issues through downplaying the crucial role of imagined utopias.

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© 1999 Macmillan Press Ltd

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Berglund, E. (1999). Utopias and Environmentalist Ambivalence Concerning Science. In: Fairweather, N.B., Elworthy, S., Stroh, M., Stephens, P.H.G. (eds) Environmental Futures. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-27265-5_9

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