Sustainable development as a power/knowledge system: the problem of ‘governmentality’

Timothy W. Luke
Additional contact information
Timothy W. Luke: Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

Chapter 2 in Greening Environmental Policy, 1995, pp 21-32 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract This chapter questions the ideas and actions of one of the most unquestioned environmental movements now operating all over the world, namely, groups supporting the goal of ‘sustainable development’. One must wonder about concepts like sustainable development. Some will take sustainable development to mean ecologically sustainable.1 Others can just as rightly see it as economically sustainable, technologically sustainable or politically sustainable.2 Consequently, chambers of commerce and ministries of industry in the 1990s glibly appropriate sustainable development discourse as their own: this dam, that factory, these highways, those powerlines must be built to sustain, not nature, but job creation, population growth, industrial output or service delivery, because such elements improve human life and enhance its ecosystems’ carrying capacities. This construction, however, clashes with more ecological interpretations of sustainability in which humans allegedly are seeking ‘social and material progress within the constraints of sustainable resource use and environmental management’ and, as a result, renewable resources (plants, trees, animals and soil) will be used no faster than they are generated; non-renewable resources (such as fossil fuels and metals) will be used no faster than acceptable substitutes can be found; and pollutants will be generated no faster than can be absorbed and neutralized by the environment.3

Date: 1995
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-1-137-08357-9_2

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.palgrave.com/9781137083579

DOI: 10.1007/978-1-137-08357-9_2

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Palgrave Macmillan Books from Palgrave Macmillan
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().