The Light-Green Society: Ecology and Technological Modernity in France, 1960-2000 / Edition 1

The Light-Green Society: Ecology and Technological Modernity in France, 1960-2000 / Edition 1

by Michael Bess
ISBN-10:
0226044181
ISBN-13:
9780226044187
Pub. Date:
11/15/2003
Publisher:
University of Chicago Press
ISBN-10:
0226044181
ISBN-13:
9780226044187
Pub. Date:
11/15/2003
Publisher:
University of Chicago Press
The Light-Green Society: Ecology and Technological Modernity in France, 1960-2000 / Edition 1

The Light-Green Society: Ecology and Technological Modernity in France, 1960-2000 / Edition 1

by Michael Bess
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Overview

The accelerating interpenetration of nature and culture is the hallmark of the new "light-green" social order that has emerged in postwar France, argues Michael Bess in this penetrating new history. On one hand, a preoccupation with natural qualities and equilibrium has increasingly infused France's economic and cultural life. On the other, human activities have laid an ever more potent and pervasive touch on the environment, whether through the intrusion of agriculture, industry, and urban growth, or through the much subtler and more well-intentioned efforts of ecological management.

The Light-Green Society limns sharply these trends over the last fifty years. The rise of environmentalism in the 1960s stemmed from a fervent desire to "save" wild nature-nature conceived as a qualitatively distinct domain, wholly separate from human designs and endeavors. And yet, Bess shows, after forty years of environmentalist agitation, much of it remarkably successful in achieving its aims, the old conception of nature as a "separate sphere" has become largely untenable. In the light-green society, where ecology and technological modernity continually flow together, a new hybrid vision of intermingled nature-culture has increasingly taken its place.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780226044187
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Publication date: 11/15/2003
Edition description: 1
Pages: 387
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.50(d)

About the Author

Michael Bess is an associate professor of history at Vanderbilt University. He is the author of Realism, Utopia, and the Mushroom Cloud: Four Activist Intellectuals and their Strategies for Peace, 1945-1989, also published by the University of Chicago Press.

Read an Excerpt

The Light-Green Society

Ecology and Technological Modernity in France, 1960-2000
By Michael Bess

University of Chicago Press

Copyright © 2003 The University of Chicago
All right reserved.

ISBN: 0-226-04417-3


Chapter One

What Might It Actually Look Like? The French Green Utopia: A Guided Tour

The slower you go, the more you discover the wonder of it. But if you really want to know its riches, you have to become its inhabitant. The most beautiful place of all is the one you inhabit, because it's here that time mingles with space to allow us to explore all its enfolded secrets, to discover its protean diversity ceaselessly renewed through the passing seasons and years. This can only happen in a place where our roots have the time to go down into the earth.-Bernard Charbonneau, 1991

Thus far we have traced the historical development of the French green movement, and laid out the broad outlines of the ideology that animated it. In this concluding chapter of Part II, I would like to put some flesh on the bare bones of this intellectual portrait, by imagining what it would be like to visit an actual incarnation of the French green ideology-a utopian society situated in the not-too-distant future, in which green ideas have been given a chance to come to full and systemic fruition.

This utopian sketch is of course my own invention-a composite drawn from thebroad range of contemporary French environmentalist ideas. Although I would expect that different aspects of it would elicit objections from a variety of French greens, I have striven, in creating it, to remain faithful to the core principles underlying the greens' major publications and policy statements. If I had to point to a single document as having constituted my most important source and "blueprint," it would be the 1999 electoral platform for Les Verts; but I have also drawn heavily on my own interviews with French environmentalists, and on forty years of their writings along these lines.

In putting together this imagined field trip, I have tried to steer a middle road between "realism" and "optimism"-assuming no major changes in human nature or the laws of physics, but nevertheless postulating a sweeping cultural shift of the sort that the French have actually witnessed from time to time in the course of their long history. Needless to say, the portrait that follows should not be taken too literally. It is a greatly compressed and simplified microcosm of green ideas, projected onto a manageable narrative scale: the result is, unavoidably, a stylized and impressionistic account, designed to capture the "feel" of a certain constellation of philosophical values in concrete embodiment. The real world, if it ever goes dark green, will be a vastly more complicated, contested, striated, and ambiguous place.

* * *

It comes into sight rather abruptly as you pedal your bike, huffing and puffing, over the rise, and at first glance it doesn't seem all that different. You stop by the side of road and take it in.

A French country village at mid-morning on a weekday in June, moss-covered stone roofs and medieval church steeple, surrounded by lush countryside: fields, hedgerows, lanes cutting at different angles, marked by receding lines of ancient chestnut trees and oaks. A narrow water runnel, alongside the road, is gurgling softly, its banks a tangle of watercress and ferns, its clear flow looking very cold.

This is the heart of the French ecological utopia: a village (imaginary, of course) named Vignac, around the year 2020, somewhere along the banks of the Dordogne river, in rural south-central France. But it's not what it appears. It is not a piece of France's past, a quaint vacation-spot for Dutch or British tourists seeking a break from the frenetic pace of London or Rotterdam. This is no backwater: not anymore.

Behind one of the barns of a nearby farmhouse, you see the glint of sunlight on a satellite dish. A tractor is working the field up ahead-silently: it's an electric tractor, powered by a zero-emissions hydrogen fuel cell. The only sound it makes comes from the steel cutting blades as they turn up the loam; the only exhaust it leaves behind is an invisible vapor of pure water. You look more closely: there's a man plodding behind the tractor, inspecting the furrows as he walks. And the tractor cab is empty: it's going by itself! The farmer has all his fields mapped on a program that's linked through his computer to a Global Positioning Satellite, accurate down to two centimeters: the computer is running the tractor, adjusting for variations in soil quality and density as the machine advances. The farmer looks up as you ride by, and watches you, but does not wave until you raise your hand in greeting.

You approach Vignac. The first thing you notice is the solar panels on the southwest side of all the roofs; they catch the sunlight in little striations and rainbows. The next thing you notice is the quiet. People moving to and fro, bicycles, a car here and there, one truck-but all electric, all silent. As you come closer you hear a clamor of children playing: it's recess at the elementary school.

A small round blue sign by the road says "Bienvenue a Vignac," and beneath, in smaller letters, "Commune d'Europe."

Down the main street, which is lined with tall elms, you see a fountain splashing in the main square. To the left is a long three-story stone building with a logo on it: Vignac Logiciels, known throughout the world more simply as "VL," one of the leading innovators in the global software industry. The company has more than ten thousand employees, but only three hundred work here in the administrative center. The others all work at home (all over Europe) and "telecommute" by computer for most of their daily business. VL's stock was up 14 percent last year, and all employees, from janitors to managers, receive annual stock options and profit-sharing.

Bicycles. Everywhere. Leaning against trees, parked in racks, small ones, tall ones, high-tech racers, black clunkers that look like they date from the 1940s, funny-looking three-wheeled contraptions with large wicker baskets behind the seat. (The baskets are another local specialty. Renowned for their lightness and durability, they are highly prized all over Europe.) As you make your way down the main street, a young woman on a bike whizzes out from a narrow cross-street and nearly collides with you. RingRing! She sounds off at you with her handlebar bell, and before you can even react, she's gone. You look down: you're standing in a bike lane. Quickly you retreat to the sidewalk, walking your bike along.

The bicycle is the foundation of the transportation system here. If you need to go to the next village, Ceyrac, there's a bus every hour (with a large bike rack in the back). If you need to go farther, the train is best: there's a fast minitrain every two hours to the regional hub, Aurillac. From there you can get TGV connections all over Europe: Bordeaux, Toulouse, and Lyon in about one hour, Paris in four hours, London or Brussels in just under six. But it's expensive: the government keeps prices high, both to discourage unnecessary travel, and to pay for the significant costs of soundproofing and tree-planting along the rail lines. Students are given deep discounts on all rail fares, to encourage them to visit other cities and countries; and each household is allotted a sheaf of discounted (and nontransferable) tickets once a year. A similar set of rules applies to air travel: one trip per person per year on a heavily discounted basis, with extremely high prices after that. Within the quotas, travel is cheap and easy; above the quotas, travel is a luxury that few allow themselves.

Same goes for cars. That's why there are so few on the streets here. What with the purchase tax and the energy tax and the road tax and the luxury tax, a private car lies beyond the reach of most citizens. But this does not mean that people can't move around as they wish. Apart from the dense and efficient network of public transport, there are more flexible alternatives: cheap electric taxis in the big cities, and public loan cars in smaller towns and villages. The loan cars work very simply: you punch your address into a computer and order a car. A few minutes later someone drives up to your door with a publicly owned car-usually a mid-priced, sturdy, zero-emissions Peugeot, Citroen, or Renault. The delivery-person has his bike on a rack on the back; he scans your credit card and rides off toward the car depot. You get in and drive wherever you wish, paying a low tariff based on distance and time. Insurance is included in the price. (The tariff is heavily subsidized for trips up to 100 kilometers, using funds the government gets from the energy tax, road tax, and luxury tax.) When you're done with the car, you swipe your card on the dashboard reader, lock the doors, and walk away. The car automatically radios the dispatcher that it's ready for pick-up.

The only time this loan-car system comes under stress is during bad weather, when many would prefer to ride a car than a bike. But here the public transport system rises to the occasion: a special fleet of extra buses and minivans (all electric, of course) comes into service during these periods, passing down the streets every three minutes and servicing the entire town. Local public transport is swift, dependable, and completely free. So even during foul weather the demand for loan-cars remains manageable.

Now you come into the town square, still walking your bike. Trees. Steep sloping rooftops on the old surrounding buildings. A cafe, le Bar Sport, its tables spilling out onto the smooth cobbles of the square. Beautiful fountain, reflecting the sunlight. RingRing! An old lady barreling along on a three-wheeler swerves wildly to avoid you, then curses in local dialect as she continues off across the square. You look down: bike lane again. Meekly you make your way to one side. This is going to take some getting used to.

The stately neoclassical building across the square says "Mairie" on the front: Town Hall. People are going in and out, some in a hurry, talking on cell phones, others more leisurely, gesticulating in little groups. There's a bronze sculpture to one side of the building, a modernist design with lots of hoops and circles of different sizes. You go closer to have a look. The hoops are arranged concentrically, their angles offset like a model of the solar system's planetary orbits. Inside each metal ring you see an engraved word: "Citoyen" ("citizen") on the small central hoop, then "Vignac" on the next largest, then "Auvergne," "France," "Europe," and "Terre" on the successively larger circles. France abolished its Senate ten years ago, replacing it with a Chamber of Regions; represented in this new political body are eighteen territorial units that hark back to the time of Louis XIV, bearing names like Bretagne, Normandie, Languedoc, Auvergne, Gascogne, Savoie. The smaller departements, dating to French Revolutionary days, had come to be seen as artificial entities, bearing little relation to the historic and linguistic identity of France's regional cultures; they were dissolved, and their powers absorbed by the newly consolidated and invigorated regional governments. Many former functions of the central state, such as social welfare, health care, and amenagement du territoire, are now handled directly at the regional level as well.

If you were to ask a local resident where she feels the most allegiance, she might reply, "I am from the Auvergne, and I am a European." If pressed, she will acknowledge that she is very much French as well, but she will quickly add that her Frenchness is not as important as it used to be. What matters most now is the distinctiveness of her native region, the Auvergne, with its mountains and rivers, ancient traditions and vibrant contemporary cultural life. And of course her Europeanness, the sense of belonging to a unique heritage of literatures, values, and habits shared in common with other peoples of the continent's western reaches-the Italians, Spaniards, Dutch, Germans-even the English! "In some ways," she might tell you, "I have more in common with a Lombard woman, or a man from Salzburg, than I do with many Parisians-for the issues that confront us here in our daily lives are those of a rural and mountainous region, far removed from the concerns of those flatland city-dwellers."

But the people of Vignac-they call themselves les Vignacois-would laugh at the thought of being called "provincial." There is no such thing any more as "center" and "periphery"-at least not in the sense these terms used to mean. A man from Vignac gets up in the morning, skims through several electronic news sheets transmitted from editorial rooms in the regional capital of Clermont-Ferrand, from Paris or Frankfurt, from Los Angeles or Tokyo. He goes to work by computer, transacting business from continent to continent, speaking the universal language of English. He listens to music beamed in from Mombasa or New Orleans, St. Petersburg or Buenos Aires. He follows with interest the political developments in Indonesia, Sicily, or Chile. And then he comes back to the present horizon, here in Vignac, meeting a couple friends in the neighborhood cafe to discuss the upcoming mayoral election.

On the front of the Town Hall, carved into the marble pediment, you see the familiar slogan of the French Revolution: Liberte, Igalite, Fraternite. But underneath, in characters mimicking the same neoclassical style, there is a new trio of words: Responsabilite, Identite, Solidarite. You're just beginning to ponder these terms when a brouhaha erupts from behind the cafe: people arguing, angrily yelling. Sounds serious. You make your way over. Clusters of men and women, arms waving. They keep pointing at the ground: then you smile. It's a game of boules. One wiry old man in a beret appears to be claiming his boule is closest to the tiny target ball. A short-haired young woman taps her head: "Ca va pas, non?" ("You crazy or something?"). A paunchy fellow with a huge handlebar moustache tries to intervene, but they brush him aside. The wiry fellow gets out his string and re-measures. Tense silence. Smugly he holds up the string. The woman heads back to the throwing line, grumbling. She turns and takes aim. The others look on, intense. Her body swings, the boule flies, a long slow arc, landing with a metallic Tchac! right on the wiry man's boule, sending it flying and taking its place. Grins all round, a scowl from the wiry man. The woman tries unsuccessfully not to look triumphant.

What strikes you suddenly is the composition of these boules players. They're not the usual assembly of crusty village old-timers. These are young people and old, men and women. There's also a young Arab-looking man among them-Algerian perhaps. What you're seeing here is the result of the twenty-five-hour work week: people with time on their hands, time to fish, to paint, to read (and write) books, to play boules on a sunny weekday morning. With more people spending less time at their jobs, unemployment has come down to 2 percent nationwide, and is almost nil here in Vignac. The vast majority of workers declare themselves well satisfied with this new arrangement of their labor time, happy to trade a decline in income for the time to live richer lives. Those who prefer to work longer (and earn more) are free to do so, taking on extra jobs as they see fit. But statisticians have shown that, although the number of hours worked by each citizen has gone down 37 percent from the old forty-hour week, most people are still taking home about 80 percent of their former full-time pay. The reason for the discrepancy lies in two factors: the increased productivity of a well-rested and highly motivated workforce, and the fact that declining unemployment has allowed the government to reduce payroll taxes, which in turn has allowed businesses to pass on the tax savings to employees in the form of proportionately higher salaries.

As you turn away from the boules game, you spy a buffet counter inside the cafe. The strenuous ride into town has made you hungry: you lean your bike against a tree and head inside. Amazing display of foods, a cornucopia of fresh vegetables and salads and terrines and pates and wizened little salamis. To one side an entire section with nothing but cheeses: round, square, dry, creamy, peppery, ash-covered, goat, sheep, cow, bright white fromage frais, yellowed fusty-looking Rocquefort. Long fresh-smelling baguettes sticking out of baskets like floral arrangements. Small carafes of the house white, chilled and sweating. The barman beckons you to help yourself, which you gladly do, taking a full tray out to the breezeway tables under a flowering canopy of wisteria. Once you get started you find the food even more delicious than it looked.

(Continues...)



Excerpted from The Light-Green Society by Michael Bess Copyright © 2003 by The University of Chicago . Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Part I - The Postwar Acceleration
Introduction
1. Nukes, Concordes, and Anxiety
The French "Special Relationship" with High Technology
Ambivalent Modernity
Europe's Nuclear Macho? Perceptions of France as a Relatively "Ungreen" Nation
The Postwar Boom: Continuity vs. Discontinuity
Technological Darwinism
The Great Renewal
Machine/Symbol: The Concorde
The Role of Nuclear Technology within the National Discourse of Anxiety
French Perceptions of the Rainbow Warrior Affair
2. Endangered Species: The French Peasant
The Rural Future: A Key Issue for the French Greens
Machine/Symbol: Le Cheval Vapeur (Farm tractor, or "Steam-Horse")
The Cultural Backlash: In Search of a New Rural Balance
Territorial Balancing
French Uniqueness, French Ordinariness
Part II - The Rise of Ecology
3. The Prehistory fo Ecological Awareness
Environmentalism and Ecology: Working Definitions
Nineteenth-Century Precursors in France: From "Acclimatation" to Conservation
From Unity to Beauty: The Early Twentieth Century
1945-1960: Warnings Unheeded
4. The Unexpected Trajectory of Environmentalist Success
1960-1974: Taking it to a New Level
1974-1981: Eco-Quixote vs. Electricité de France
Machine/Symbol: The Nuclear Reactor
1981-1989: Entering the Political Fray
1989-present: "Tous Verts!"—"We are all environmentalists!"
5. Nuances of Dark Green
The Intellectual Horizons of French Environmentalism
A Revolution against the Industrial Revolution
The Two Main Currents of French Green Thought
Social Environmentalism: Four Interlocking Agendas
What Is Distinctive about the French Green Visions?
6. What Might It Actually Look Like?
The French Green Utopia: A Guided Tour
Machine/Symbol: The Wind Turbine
Part III - A Society Goes Light-Green
7. The Dual Nature of Light-Green
Nature Penetrating into Society—Machine/Symbol: The Train à Grande Vitesse
Society Penetrating into Nature—Machine/Symbol: Brittany's Pointe du Raz
8. Greening the Mainstream Consumer
Ironic Twists of a Partial Revolution
Surface Change and Deep Change
Back to Nature
Eco-consumerism: The Overflowing Cornucopia of "Less is More"
Eco-labels and "Eco-Friendliness"
9. The Environmentalization of the State
Anti-statism, More Government
The Layer Cake of Green Governance: Six Levels, Three Modes
Key State Actors, Key Legal Turning-Points
10. Industrialists as Ecologists
Factories and Big Business: New Constraints, New Strategies
ISO-14000 and Eco-Audit: The Case of an Industrial Pioneer
The New Eco-Professions: Expansion in the Tertiary Sector
11. Elusive Sustainability
A Territorial Balance Sheet
The State of the French Territory: An Ecocentric Perspective
The Anthropocentric Perspective: Is the Light-Green Society Sustainable as a Habitat for Humans?
Part IV - The Future of Nature in a Light-Green World: Long-Term Global Implications
12. The Light-Green Horizon
Broader Implications of the French Story
Humans and Nature on a Shrinking Earth
13. Artificialization and Its Discontents
The Rising Tide of Artifice
Machine/Symbol: Biotechnologies
La Gestion du Vivant: The "Management of All Living Things"
14. The Enduring Mirage of Wilderness
Philosophies of Nature for a Technologically Intensive Age
If Not the Dualism of Nature and Culture, then What?
The Case for Hybridity: A World of Intertwinings
The Case for Dualism: Wilderness as the Irreducible Other
From Wilderness to Wildness: A Paradoxical Synthesis
15. The Shifting Landscape of Tame and Wild
Nature Penetrating into Society: Emerging Connectedness
Society Penetrating into Nature: Ambiguous Control
16. A Cosmic Wilderness?
Cousteau's Grandchildren Swim the Rings of Saturn
Conclusion
The Age of Ecology Arrives (But it is not what anyone expected)
A Planet of Paysage?
Notes
Bibliography
Index
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