PLANNING FOR A SUSTAINABLE EUROPE? - TU Berlin

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one hand, and modernization (and modernity more generally) on the other hand.
Consequently, the political-economic and cultural changes brought about by the deindustrialization
of Western societies should be seen not as an indication of a move
towards post-modernity, but rather as a “break within modernity, which is freeing itself
from the contours of the classical industrial society and forming a new form – the
(industrial) risk society” (Beck 1992:9, also quoted in Gleeson 2000:119 with added
emphases). Triggered by two deeply symbolic historical events – the 1984 Chernobyl
disaster and the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall 20 – Beck finds that previous, sciencefocused,
linear, instrumental rationality is increasingly giving way to a new reflexive
rationality in which nature and society are no longer objectified but assessed in a more
self-aware manner. In this process, nature becomes highly politicized and social
institutions radically recomposed. In essence, Beck explains the rise of environmental
awareness and the emergence of new forms of (multi-level) governance as an outcome of
the most evident failures of the industrial society model. Neither capitalist nor socialist
attempts at industrial modernization were ultimately capable of producing the universally
prosperous, just and nature-controlling societies that their various proponents promised.
Nature is indeed increasingly disenchanted but never successfully dominated. What is
more important is that, quite frequently, the negative side effects or unintended
consequences related to the usage of modern technologies outweigh their benefits.
The transport sector provides a perfect example of this dynamic. At present, the
comfortable and speedy mobility afforded to large parts of the population in OECD
countries by means of fossil fuel-dependent automobile and air transport is in large part
20 These two events are, as Gleeson correctly notes in his own review of Beck, indeed very eurocentric
choices.