{"title":"Between continuous presents and disruptive futures: Identifying the ideological backbones of global environmental scenarios","authors":"","doi":"10.1016/j.futures.2024.103460","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Despite the great relevance of global environmental scenarios for the study of environmental change and sustainability transitions, they have rarely been the object of analysis for scholars of the social sciences. In this article, we analyze the ideological assumptions of 993 global environmental scenarios contained in 243 academic works. By developing a new categorization of environmental scenarios, we investigate the economic and governance organization reflected in the scenarios, as well as the portrayed human-nature relationships. We find that global environmental scenarios developed and used by the scientific community largely reproduce rather than break with dominant power structures in the economic, governance and cultural domain. The majority of scenarios reflects an anthropocentric worldview and assumes that the logic of global capitalism and of the Westphalian state-based governance system will not change radically during the 21st century. The implicit solution of sustainability problems dominating these scenarios is a combination of continuous economic growth, rapid technological progress and an international (environmental) agreement. ‘Alternative scenarios’ are scarce, often only problematize one dimension of the social structure of world society and frequently lack explicit drivers of change or pathways to desirable futures. To increase the diversity of scenarios, future research should focus on refining and quantifying existing post-capitalist, post-state-centric and/or ecocentric scenarios, and on developing a range of scenarios whose storyline systematically problematize or even break with current power structures.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":48239,"journal":{"name":"Futures","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.0000,"publicationDate":"2024-08-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016328724001423/pdfft?md5=e9444f90a7f77fe06266401264971827&pid=1-s2.0-S0016328724001423-main.pdf","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Futures","FirstCategoryId":"91","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016328724001423","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"ECONOMICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Despite the great relevance of global environmental scenarios for the study of environmental change and sustainability transitions, they have rarely been the object of analysis for scholars of the social sciences. In this article, we analyze the ideological assumptions of 993 global environmental scenarios contained in 243 academic works. By developing a new categorization of environmental scenarios, we investigate the economic and governance organization reflected in the scenarios, as well as the portrayed human-nature relationships. We find that global environmental scenarios developed and used by the scientific community largely reproduce rather than break with dominant power structures in the economic, governance and cultural domain. The majority of scenarios reflects an anthropocentric worldview and assumes that the logic of global capitalism and of the Westphalian state-based governance system will not change radically during the 21st century. The implicit solution of sustainability problems dominating these scenarios is a combination of continuous economic growth, rapid technological progress and an international (environmental) agreement. ‘Alternative scenarios’ are scarce, often only problematize one dimension of the social structure of world society and frequently lack explicit drivers of change or pathways to desirable futures. To increase the diversity of scenarios, future research should focus on refining and quantifying existing post-capitalist, post-state-centric and/or ecocentric scenarios, and on developing a range of scenarios whose storyline systematically problematize or even break with current power structures.
期刊介绍:
Futures is an international, refereed, multidisciplinary journal concerned with medium and long-term futures of cultures and societies, science and technology, economics and politics, environment and the planet and individuals and humanity. Covering methods and practices of futures studies, the journal seeks to examine possible and alternative futures of all human endeavours. Futures seeks to promote divergent and pluralistic visions, ideas and opinions about the future. The editors do not necessarily agree with the views expressed in the pages of Futures