The conclusions that I have currently drawn from my analysis of dam removal in Klamath Basin through a Latourian lens are largely based off of the issues that I identified in the first part of the paper. I believe that using the six problems to assess the practicality and usefulness of Latour’s framework is a good way to go, but I have to develop my evaluation.
The first two of the six issues I identified and their in-progress analyses are as follows:
First, the legislation that is in place to address environmental issues is not designed to incorporate the nuances of such complicated disagreements.
Legislation like the CWA and the ESA is designed to address issues that deal concretely with scientific fact. While this legislation is arguably the best way to address environmental issues at this point in time, it is not able to account for the social and economic factors that make up a significant amount of the conflict. Latour’s framework remedy’s this problem indirectly by turning a procedure that typically valorizes science and scientific expertise into a process that does not hold the knowledge or opinion of any one participant over another. Additionally, the new constitution removes the finality associated with laws and gives actors the ability to continue to contribute and alter decisions.
Second, the federal agencies whose job it is to speak to environmental dilemmas are too focused on sticking to their agency goals to judge whether or not they are reasonable and helpful expectations to hold themselves to.
Currently, science agencies deal with fact, management agencies dabble in the realm of values but are primarily focused on information, and politicians are the champions of values and morals. Divvying up certain powers or responsibilities to certain groups hinders those groups from fully comprehending an issue. Latour’s framework requires that agency goals and jobs be redefined to reflect the introduction of new multitudes and types of actors. These will be no need to try and achieve what scientists define as objectivity, only the necessity to recognize that it does not exist in this particular solution finding process. Since actors will wear many different hats, any type of agency will have a completely different configuration that the ones that exist now. Agencies will be closer to filling the roles of the Upper and Lower houses which means that exclusivity will be a thing of the past.
Third…
I’ve got to continue along this path.
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