When someone pointed out the dangers of his product to Ben van Beurden during his time as boss of Shell, he was happy to bounce the ball back, and often with success. Yes, he said, our gasoline contributes to greenhouse gas emissions and therefore to climate change. But you are the one who wants to drive a car with a combustion engine. We deliver what you ask for, what you need.
There is little that can be said against that. It shows how difficult it can be to determine exactly who is responsible for which climate damage. That ties in with the Risikogesellschaftthe ‘risk society’ that the world is heading towards, according to sociologist Ulrich Beck, who died in 2015. In his book of the same name, he describes how the world is changing from a society based exclusively on prosperity, to a society in which choices are increasingly dictated by the dangers that the pursuit of prosperity entails.
PFAS, nuclear waste, the coronavirus, climate change – according to Beck, the risks of modern society are uncertain and incalculable, often complex and transboundary and in the worst case even irreversible. And, as with Shell petrol, everyone almost always bears some responsibility for the damage these risks can cause.
Beck published his book exactly forty years ago, in 1986. That was the year in which the Chernobyl nuclear disaster suddenly made his abstractions about the dangers of industrialization a harsh reality. The accident showed how the risk society inescapably imposed itself on the world. According to Beck, the world was in a transition from the old to a new modernity. That wasn’t just any change. No, it was about one Verwandlunga metamorphosis. Existing solutions and institutions that had previously worked excellently no longer suited the new times.
An unhealthy living environment
The old modernity, closely linked to the industrial revolution, was primarily aimed at creating wealth goods. Logical, because there were too few of them in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Industry brought income, property and ultimately social emancipation. Before that, smog, loss of nature and an often unhealthy living environment were taken for granted.
But now – at least in Western countries – the need for prosperity is becoming saturated. According to Beck, in the new modernity, more and more attention is being paid to the harmful side effects of progress. The question is no longer how to distribute the wealth, but how to distribute the risks. How to deal with the dangers that wealth brings?
In the beginning it may be possible to keep the collateral damage of prosperity growth at bay, especially in the richer part of society. But before you know it, the dangers boomerang back on those who caused them. Ultimately, there is nowhere to hide from global warming; PFAS is now in everyone’s blood, even if you do not live close to the factory where these non-degradable substances are produced.
For climate lawyer Tim Bleeker, Beck’s theory was already one during his studies eye opener. He is now an associate professor of climate law at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, and Beck still offers points of reference for dealing with legal issues about climate change.
“Beck’s theory shows blind spots in our thinking,” Bleeker explains in an interview. “Modern risks require a different logic. You can produce and trade prosperity, but you cannot solve the distribution of risks with free market thinking. Like: we have a heat wave here or a tropical disease that is going to spread, a coral reef that is dying, who is bidding? These kinds of side effects of creating prosperity are still outside the system. We are not dealing with them responsibly.”
In an article, New standards for modern risks (in a 2020 issue of the Association for Environmental Law), Bleeker summarizes the problem as follows: “The production of prosperity is immediate and desirable, while the production of risk is an undesirable, unavoidable and cumulative by-product. Unlike a scarcity of prosperity, a scarcity of safety cannot be remedied by producing ‘more safety’.”
Politics struggles with modern risks
The longer the dangers are ignored, Bleeker says, following Beck, the more pressing they become. But politics does not seem to be able to cope with modern risks, whether it concerns the nitrogen dossier, climate policy or tackling water pollution. Politicians have difficulty with long-term problems, especially if they are complex and cross-border, cost a lot of money and require citizens to organize their lives differently. Science, the source of absolute truth in old modernity, also offers insufficient protection. In fact, science and technology created nuclear radiation, microplastics and artificial intelligence without sufficient consideration of the consequences. Politics and science still follow the logic of wealth distribution rather than risk distribution, Bleeker writes in his article.
Bleeker’s own field, law, is also often still stuck in the old modernity. The judiciary is still strongly oriented towards assessing damage (after the fact). “That fits in with liberal society,” says Bleeker. “You are free, as long as you do not restrict the freedom of others. That is of course also something nice, something you would prefer to keep that way.”
But the risk society does not allow that, says Beck. The dangers are too great for that. This is damage that must be prevented at all costs. The law therefore turns to the precautionary principle. “It is no longer the case that something is permitted unless it proves to be dangerous; it is increasingly the case that something is only permitted if it is safe,” says Bleeker. “You can rightly call that a paradigm shift. In climate and nitrogen cases it is no longer just about damage that someone has demonstrably caused. No, judges look ahead. They say to a government or company: we want you to bring the policy or business model in line with what is necessary for safety.”
Beck’s metamorphosis is not yet complete. Perhaps, when the time comes, Shell will still have to answer for selling gasoline and the damage its product has caused.