Environmental nasty surprise, post-normal science, and the troubled role of experts in sustainable democratic environmental decision making

Abstract

An environmental nasty surprise is an environmental problem such as stratospheric ozone depletion that: catches scientists, technologists, regulators, mass media, and public off-guard; is already extensive by the time it is widely recognized; stems from entrenched technologies; and presents a potentially large-scale, long-term threat to humans or ecosystems. How might the need to minimize the generation of such problems – and address them as effectively as possible when they emerge – help us think more clearly about the role that experts should play in environmental decision making? Using case material on industrial chlorine chemistry, this paper considers the limitations of the theory of post-normal science as a framework for identifying appropriate and inappropriate modes of scientific and technical expertise in environmental decision making. The analysis highlights the need for a model of sustainability expertise that (a) recognizes how prevailing frameworks of environmental decision making allow technologists to actively produce – and exploit – uncertainty and (b) normatively promotes development and deployment of expertise in ways that actively confront these tendencies while making environmental decision making more democratic.