Blurring Divisions in a Fuzzy World: Climate Change, Nuclear Power, Public Engagement, and Energy Justice

Abstract

This study addresses the lack of trust, stakeholder conflict and binary ways of thinking that are creating barriers to the implementation of policy solutions to climate change. The divisive nature of the public debate over nuclear energy was explored through the inclusion of participants who held a diversity of opinions on the role of nuclear energy in climate change mitigation. This study uses a method of public engagement called deliberative mapping (Stirling and Davies 2004b) to bring citizens and specialists together to assess options for the reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in small, remote or off-grid communities, including assessment of small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) as one option. Instead of oversimplifying complexities, multiple realities were brought together to expand understandings of what options are available and what the risks and benefits might be under different scenarios or according to different perspectives. Through qualitative analysis of the data collected, the theories of critical realism and queer ecology (Sandilands 2016) allowed for an investigation into binary constructions of knowledge that emerged in the study. Critical realism allows multiple ways of knowing to be combined, while queer ecology recognizes that the lines between society and nature must be necessarily blurred to ensure survival of all species, including the human species. Key findings from the study highlight that transforming energy systems to address climate change is dependent on transforming ourselves as humans as part of nature. Addressing climate change is not just about GHG reduction, it is also about understanding that human health and ecological health are linked. Fostering energy justice requires encouraging diversity in solutions. Leaving every available option on the table and allowing communities to decide for themselves is a less polarizing approach and enables the incorporation of local knowledge in those decisions. To foster procedural justice alongside distributional and recognition justice, the public policy debate needs to be opened up before it can be narrowed down. This includes opening up discussions on climate change to explore pathways to include community within our definition of nature and nature within our definition of community.