Sociology AS Day: ‘Green Crime’ Putting this topic into a wider sociological context

1. Sociology AS Day: ‘Green Crime’Putting this topic into a wider sociological context

2. Lancaster Workshop 9th July 2010 A.M.: Sociological interpretation of Chernobyl with Professor Brian Wynne P.M.: What can we learn about green crime from the case of oil extraction in Alberta’s tar sands?

3. Risks in your everyday life Write answers on your pieces of paper 1. Write down one example of a risk in your everyday life: 2. Write down - to whom or what is this a risk? 3. What things affect these risks? 4. How could you/we avoid these risks? 5. Are they voluntary, or imposed by others? Who?

4. Ulrich Beck again! • Beck, Ulrich (1992): "Risk society: towards a new modernity", Sage.

5. ‘Dounreay – to mankind shall be the reward’ ‘Millions of people, with only a glimmering of what the Atomic Age can mean to mankind, stand amazed at the prospect of heat, light and power from a source that cannot even be seen,’ Financial Times, 1956.

11. Chernobyl, Ukraine, 2nd May 1986

12. Chernobyll comes to Cumbria

14. Sellafield

16. ‘It still doesn’t give anyone any confidence the fact that they haven’t released all the documents from Sellafield in 1957. I talk to people every week and they say – “this hasn’t come from Russia!!” People say to me every week – “still restricted eh lad: that didn’t come from Russia – not with that lot on your doorstep!”

17. ‘Most farmers believe its really from BNFL. You’d have great difficulty convincing them otherwise. The area is a kind of crescent shape… You don’t need to be a scientist to figure that one out. And a lot of farmers may not be very articulate but they’ve figured that one out alright! I think there’s been low-level fall out ever since that place opened, and Chernobyl has just gone on top of it.’

18. ‘They could monitor but they don’t deliberately because if they did and found high readings then various ministries could one day be accused of irresponsibility in this regard…. It is a deliberate policy of government not to this monitoring and testing so they can protect themselves against an accusation of this nature. I would suggest we have another Christmas Island situation. The first such was BNFL in 1957. Now we have Chernobyl Cumbria… When you’ve got bottomless financial pits like Sellafield sponsoring this that and the other in order to blackmail local feeling, why could they not instead do something positive like supporting controlled experiments to answer all the questions that need answering?’

19. ‘There was the official who said he expected levels would go down when the sheep were being fed on impacted feed, and he mentioned straw. I’ve never heard of a sheep that would even look at straw as fodder. When you hear things like that it makes your hair stand on end. You just wonder, what the hell are these blokes talking about? When the hill-men heard them say that, we just said, “ what do you lot know about anything?”’

20. ‘They’ve been watching too much “One Man and his Dog”. They think you just stand at the bottom of the fell and wave a handkerchief and the sheep come running’

21. ‘If they say it’s come from Russia, I can’t argue with them – but a lot of people do! When I did an interview once the little biddy tried about five times to get me to say it came from Sellafield, but I couldn’t. I wasn’t putting my name to that!’

22. ‘If you are a journalist and you approach a Cumbrian hill farmer, he’ll clam up. But why? Because they’re frightened that Willie will lose his job at Sellafield. That’s an over simplification, but it makes the point. You don’t want to cut your neighbours’ throats.’

23. ‘One of the scientists I spoke to, he was taking samples from a patch of ground. He said there are other deposits which are directly attributable to Sellafield 1957, but its as clear as a fingerprint which is which. He sounded genuine enough! It was nothing to do with Sellafield… You just can’t argue with them because you don’t know – if a doctor jabs you up the backside to cure your headache you wouldn’t argue with him, would you!?’