GGH2605 ANSWERS
ASSESSMENT 2
SEMESTER 1 2023
1|Page
, Topic: Critically explain how rationality and power in environmental politics
influence decision-making within a green context.
Environmental assessment and management involve the production of scientific
knowledge and its use in decision-making processes. The result is that within
these essentially rational, irrational, political assessment frameworks, experts
are creating and applying scientific knowledge for decision and management
purposes that actually have strong ethical and aesthetic dimensions. Yet these
rational and irrational political frameworks lack the tools to provide guidance on
ethical and aesthetic issues that affect the wider public.
This essay argues that ethical and aesthetic dimensions can only be brought
into environmental politics and policies by citizens actively taking a stand on the
specific matters in question. Bo Elling (2010:25) argues that the trisection of
rationality as cognitive-instrumental, moral-practical and aesthetic-expressive, to
suggest that truly effective environmental policy needs to activate all three
approaches. This essay discuss the notion of effectiveness by employing a
critical theory understanding of rationality and irrationality.
This argument essay will mainly focus in problems associated with collective
action in dealing with global environmental issues, Complexities and
uncertainties associated with environmental problems and how “bounded
rationality” limits the ability of politicians to come up with creative and
imaginative ways to deal with environmental problems, and I will conclude my
argument by looking at Arguments related to the role of power and influence in
the ‘green’ policy agenda.
2|Page
ASSESSMENT 2
SEMESTER 1 2023
1|Page
, Topic: Critically explain how rationality and power in environmental politics
influence decision-making within a green context.
Environmental assessment and management involve the production of scientific
knowledge and its use in decision-making processes. The result is that within
these essentially rational, irrational, political assessment frameworks, experts
are creating and applying scientific knowledge for decision and management
purposes that actually have strong ethical and aesthetic dimensions. Yet these
rational and irrational political frameworks lack the tools to provide guidance on
ethical and aesthetic issues that affect the wider public.
This essay argues that ethical and aesthetic dimensions can only be brought
into environmental politics and policies by citizens actively taking a stand on the
specific matters in question. Bo Elling (2010:25) argues that the trisection of
rationality as cognitive-instrumental, moral-practical and aesthetic-expressive, to
suggest that truly effective environmental policy needs to activate all three
approaches. This essay discuss the notion of effectiveness by employing a
critical theory understanding of rationality and irrationality.
This argument essay will mainly focus in problems associated with collective
action in dealing with global environmental issues, Complexities and
uncertainties associated with environmental problems and how “bounded
rationality” limits the ability of politicians to come up with creative and
imaginative ways to deal with environmental problems, and I will conclude my
argument by looking at Arguments related to the role of power and influence in
the ‘green’ policy agenda.
2|Page
