Trapped between Promethean and Survivalist Discourses of Sustainability

The main concern discussed here is about obstacles to sustainable development. More specifically, the obstacles in view relate to discourses of sustainable development rather than scarcity of resources themselves. A key question is to what extent current discourses, both complying with democratic governance, are themselves obstacles to sustainable development? Two apparently conflicting discourses are considered: the Promethean view, arguing in favour of technological solutions to natural resource scarcity on the one hand, and the Survivalist view, the conviction that there are resource limits that cannot be resolved by technological fixes. According to the latter, the only solution to the problem is reduction of consumption. These two approaches are obviously conflicting. Although the author is more sympathetic to the Survivalist than the Promethean view, as the former emphasizes limits to sustainable development, this view is also subjected to a certain problem of ‘difference-blindness’. The concept is borrowed from Charles Taylor’s writings on multiculturalism and politics of recognition, and a connection is also being made to Stephen Gardiners’ concept of ‘moral storms’. The prevailing moral discourses on sustainability, within the frames of democratic governance, gloss over certain relevant differences between affluent and poor countries. This leads to the main point, which is about obstacles to sustainability caused by (i) a certain difference-blindness in the prevailing discourses on sustainability, and (ii) an empirical conflict between the democratic equality norm and its implementation, as demonstrated in the politics following from the prevailing discourses of sustainability.