A Thousand Biofuels?
By Yannick Devillers. In the 1980s two thinkers published an important work in continental philosophy, titled 'Mille Plateaux' (A Thousand Plateaus). In it, they attacked binary thinking and the school of thought known as 'structuralism', which reduces the analysis of social realities to clearly defined structures composed of binary oppositions. To analyse reality, structuralist thought imposes pre-defined, static structures on it, and treats everything that falls outside of these structures as a type of irrelevant 'noise' or 'waste'.
Gillles Deleuze and Felix Guattari instead proposed a better model to analyse complex contemporary cultures, power and social structures: look at them as a dynamic, ever changing web, a network of shape-shifting 'plateaus', which cannot be reduced or represented by clear definitions and the movement of which continuously opens gaps and spaces for the unexpected. Reality is a rhizome, a web of underground roots that shoot up, die and reappear in unexpected places. The 'Thousands Plateaus' are open, dynamic and permanently growing. With this model, Deleuze and Guattari became the leading thinkers of postmodern philosophy.
Their analytical framework penetrated a wide variety of other fields, from architecture and design, to market analysis, economics and the social sciences. Biopact suggests we apply the metaphors of A Thousand Plateaus to the web of opportunities and risks presented by bioenergy and biofuels.
Fuels made from biomass are never either 'eco-saviors' or 'destroyers', as a recent headline states. That is simplistic binary thinking. Instead, there are a thousand biofuels, a thousand opportunities and risks involved, a multitude of technologies and conversion processes. The sheer diversity of geographic locations in which they are made, the wide range of market connections, the multiple social and environmental effects resulting from their production... all these different factors weave a web of different biofuels that can be plotted on a network that covers a spectrum ranging from the 'very good' to the 'very bad', and everything in between.
Biofuels can be very helpful on a local scale in farming communities who are losing their livelihoods because of disastrously high oil prices. They can be damaging to local populations when produced on a large scale by powerful conglomerates. But at the same time, the often criticized activities of multinationals and the 'global market' of biofuels can just as well result in unanticipated beneficial effects: skyrocketing food prices as a result of biofuels could unlock a series of much needed investments in African agriculture and break the perverse conditions EU/US subsidies, trade barriers, corrupt African governments, lack of interest in agriculture) that has kept farmers there in poverty - with the result that Africa's much anticipated Green Revolution could be ironically triggered by the biofuels market. That would be a huge, beneficial transformation. But we don't really know.
One thing that we know for certain is that biofuels are never just good or bad. The entire complex web of social, economic, environmental and political factors in which they are caught must be analysed. The full series of spatio-temporal dimensions must be taken into account: from the very local to the global, and from the short term to the very long term (e.g. the time-scale of the projected effects of climate change).
An example of this type of network-thinking is gradually being expressed in analyses about the 'global lifecycle' of biofuels: production in one place can result in unexpected social or environmental effects elsewhere. The analysis of 'indirect emissions' and 'indirect land use change' shows how interconnectied in the global web of biofuels really is.
Throughout their thinking, Deleuze and Guattari also developed a theory about a phenomenon they dubbed 'the black hole' or 'a body without organs' - a type of knot in the web that remains undefined and can exert an influence so strong that the entire network suddenly shifts towards another dimension. The presence of this knot of uncertainty instills caution into those who try to analyse reality, because the 'black hole' is permanently there but remains invisible. All discourses about the future (of biofuels) are thus relative, local, and temporary, never the final word.
There's certainly a kind of 'black hole' present in the energy market, and especially in the biofuels market:
energy :: sustainability :: biomass :: bioenergy :: biofuels :: agriculture :: economics :: structuralism :: complexity :: network :: post-structuralism ::
Uncertainty demands we thread carefully in this sector. The sudden transformation could come from the rapid transition to electric cars, or from unexpected climate effects that destroy agricultural production locally or regionally. Perhaps Peak Oil is already here? The Tata Nano, the little people's car, could announce a shift towards mass biofuel consumption in the developing world, if oil were to become too expensive. Nobody knows.
There are a thousand different factors at play in the biofuels sector - from the social to the ethical, from the economic to the climatic - which makes it impossible for anyone to predict where this sector is going. This should make all those involved in it more humble and careful. A more contextualised and broader view on the potential risks and benefits of biofuels implies that we wage the debate on a more mature level: biofuel opponents should admit that there do exist examples of great benefits, whereas staunch advocates should never negate the fact that their fuels can result in unexpected, unwanted effects.
Read A Thousand Plateaus, if not for its theory, then for its abundant and ironic use of botanical, agronomic and biological metaphors. After all, we are talking about 'bio'-fuels for a reason.
This is an opinion piece by Yannick Devillers, historian and sociologist, member of Biopact. Translated for Biopact, by Jonas Van Den Berg.
Gillles Deleuze and Felix Guattari instead proposed a better model to analyse complex contemporary cultures, power and social structures: look at them as a dynamic, ever changing web, a network of shape-shifting 'plateaus', which cannot be reduced or represented by clear definitions and the movement of which continuously opens gaps and spaces for the unexpected. Reality is a rhizome, a web of underground roots that shoot up, die and reappear in unexpected places. The 'Thousands Plateaus' are open, dynamic and permanently growing. With this model, Deleuze and Guattari became the leading thinkers of postmodern philosophy.
Their analytical framework penetrated a wide variety of other fields, from architecture and design, to market analysis, economics and the social sciences. Biopact suggests we apply the metaphors of A Thousand Plateaus to the web of opportunities and risks presented by bioenergy and biofuels.
Fuels made from biomass are never either 'eco-saviors' or 'destroyers', as a recent headline states. That is simplistic binary thinking. Instead, there are a thousand biofuels, a thousand opportunities and risks involved, a multitude of technologies and conversion processes. The sheer diversity of geographic locations in which they are made, the wide range of market connections, the multiple social and environmental effects resulting from their production... all these different factors weave a web of different biofuels that can be plotted on a network that covers a spectrum ranging from the 'very good' to the 'very bad', and everything in between.
Biofuels can be very helpful on a local scale in farming communities who are losing their livelihoods because of disastrously high oil prices. They can be damaging to local populations when produced on a large scale by powerful conglomerates. But at the same time, the often criticized activities of multinationals and the 'global market' of biofuels can just as well result in unanticipated beneficial effects: skyrocketing food prices as a result of biofuels could unlock a series of much needed investments in African agriculture and break the perverse conditions EU/US subsidies, trade barriers, corrupt African governments, lack of interest in agriculture) that has kept farmers there in poverty - with the result that Africa's much anticipated Green Revolution could be ironically triggered by the biofuels market. That would be a huge, beneficial transformation. But we don't really know.
One thing that we know for certain is that biofuels are never just good or bad. The entire complex web of social, economic, environmental and political factors in which they are caught must be analysed. The full series of spatio-temporal dimensions must be taken into account: from the very local to the global, and from the short term to the very long term (e.g. the time-scale of the projected effects of climate change).
An example of this type of network-thinking is gradually being expressed in analyses about the 'global lifecycle' of biofuels: production in one place can result in unexpected social or environmental effects elsewhere. The analysis of 'indirect emissions' and 'indirect land use change' shows how interconnectied in the global web of biofuels really is.
Throughout their thinking, Deleuze and Guattari also developed a theory about a phenomenon they dubbed 'the black hole' or 'a body without organs' - a type of knot in the web that remains undefined and can exert an influence so strong that the entire network suddenly shifts towards another dimension. The presence of this knot of uncertainty instills caution into those who try to analyse reality, because the 'black hole' is permanently there but remains invisible. All discourses about the future (of biofuels) are thus relative, local, and temporary, never the final word.
There's certainly a kind of 'black hole' present in the energy market, and especially in the biofuels market:
energy :: sustainability :: biomass :: bioenergy :: biofuels :: agriculture :: economics :: structuralism :: complexity :: network :: post-structuralism ::
Uncertainty demands we thread carefully in this sector. The sudden transformation could come from the rapid transition to electric cars, or from unexpected climate effects that destroy agricultural production locally or regionally. Perhaps Peak Oil is already here? The Tata Nano, the little people's car, could announce a shift towards mass biofuel consumption in the developing world, if oil were to become too expensive. Nobody knows.
There are a thousand different factors at play in the biofuels sector - from the social to the ethical, from the economic to the climatic - which makes it impossible for anyone to predict where this sector is going. This should make all those involved in it more humble and careful. A more contextualised and broader view on the potential risks and benefits of biofuels implies that we wage the debate on a more mature level: biofuel opponents should admit that there do exist examples of great benefits, whereas staunch advocates should never negate the fact that their fuels can result in unexpected, unwanted effects.
Read A Thousand Plateaus, if not for its theory, then for its abundant and ironic use of botanical, agronomic and biological metaphors. After all, we are talking about 'bio'-fuels for a reason.
This is an opinion piece by Yannick Devillers, historian and sociologist, member of Biopact. Translated for Biopact, by Jonas Van Den Berg.
1 Comments:
I don't think rhizomatic thought amounts exactly to system dynamics, which is what you're thinking of. For one, you're whole system is, er, systematic, composed of clearly separated interlockd aborescent pieces.
I actually work with system dynamics in the biofuel field by day (for money) and with some applications of A Thousand Plateaus on what I'm *really* doing.
Interesting attempt though.
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