Abstract
Ireland’s slow movement to a low-carbon society has followed a distinct process of sustainable development: ecological modernisation, which sees ecological protection as compatible with, and underpinning, economic growth. But this process of environmental-driven social change has been weak and ineffective in Ireland, as policymakers have for decades prioritised economic development over ecological conservation. It also has been difficult for ecological modernist ideas to take root in Irish society because of fundamental factors in the country’s history, notably the economic and political power wielded by the agricultural sector since the State’s foundation in 1922. Irish citizens, moreover, have had low levels of environmental consciousness, because three powerful shapers of public opinion—environmental journalism, green politics, and the environmental movement—have been marginal presences in Irish civic life. However, recent political and technological developments have pointed to Ireland’s potential to become a late, but effective, ecological moderniser.
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Notes
- 1.
There is a vast scholarly literature on ecomodernism. Writers have examined ecomodernism from various perspectives and different critical approaches, viewing ecomodernism as, variously, a theory of social change; an ideology; a discourse or way of talking about the environment; or a model of political economy, a way of structuring the economic and political order of a society. For a collection of key texts that outline core ideas and evaluate critical debate, see Mol, P.J., Sonnenfeld, D.A., and Spaargaren, G. (eds.) 2010. The ecological modernisation reader: Environmental reform in theory and practice. London: Routledge. For a discussion of how ecomodernism has been applied in different countries, including ones outside Europe, see the special edition of Environmental Politics (volume 9, issue 1, 2000) on the topic of ecomodernism around the world.
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Fahy, D. (2020). Ecological Modernisation, Irish-Style: Explaining Ireland’s Slow Transition to Low-Carbon Society. In: Robbins, D., Torney, D., Brereton, P. (eds) Ireland and the Climate Crisis. Palgrave Studies in Media and Environmental Communication. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-47587-1_8
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