Environmental Probelms, Morals and Incentives in Modern Societies

Solving environmental problems we face a double problem: so far unknown dimensions of uncertainty and at the same time lost possibilities of solution. The first aspect focuses on specific patterns of risk perception and the problem of an increasing lack of knowledge in terms of what we should know in order to make decisions. The second aspect focuses on what follows from basic features of modern society. The crucial point is that these features constitute systematic limits to individual problem solving by means of strengthening individual morals and responsibilities. As a result there are systematic limits in the prevailing efforts to integrate ecological and sustainability criteria into decision making by means of information and moralizing. One answer to that is a change of the institutional framework and resulting incentive structures, so that it become easier to respond to changing ecological scarcities. But the crucial question remains, how to narrow the gap between prevailing short-run rationalities of the economic and the political decisions on the one hand and the requirements of long-run sustainability on the other. Institutionalizing new platforms of communication and participation may be a suitable option to tackle this problem.