Beck 's Thesis On Risk Society

The UNFCCC was established in 1994 to address climate change at an international level. Since then, the parties to the convention (including the EU) meet annually in Conferences of the Parties. The Kyoto Protocol (1997) set an obligation for developed countries to lower greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, through setting national targets, using 1990 as a base level. The UK has been one of only a few countries to comply with the international obligation and has reduced GHG emissions since 1990.

The UNFCCC is working with the various governments around the world to stabilize the amount of greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere to keep the planet from warming more than 2ºC above pre-industrial temperatures (Watts, 2015). The most noted of the work is the annual Conference of the Parties (COP) meetings that began with COP1 in Berlin back in 1995. The COP3 adopted the Kyoto Protocol, even though it wasn’t fully accepted by all member nations. The COP21 was an effort to legally bind members to their submitted plans of Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs), defining what level of greenhouse gas production each nation would commit to not exceeding from 2025-2030. Prior to the INDCs, a bleak outlook was forecast in 2009-2010 of global temperature rising between 4-5ºC. That figure was restated by the UNFCCC prior to the COP21 in Paris, to below 3ºC, due to the commitments of the INDCs (Watts, 2015).

At risk has an unspoken meaning. At risk is synonymous with at-risk-youth in Western Culture. At risk is a phrase used in human services, the media, academia and government to identify young people who are troubling or on the fringe of risky behavior. If you do a Google search of the phrase at risk over 13 million images will appear most of which are of young people. Risk Discourse creates a risk society in response to specific populations being on the fringe of what is deemed “normal” within society. Risk discourse is a popular modernity term written at length by Modernist such as Ulrich Beck and Anthony Giddens European Sociologists. A Risk Society was not even a term until the 1980s. In the 1990s Risk Society became popular and it acceptance coincided with the infiltration of Risk Discourse into sociology, politics, literature and academia. There is an ongoing debate as to whether environmental concerns created a vacuum for a risk society or if it was a by-product of immigration and the War on Drugs. Either way Risk Discourse and risk society language terms are here to stay. Peter Kelly poses a question asking if young people are a society’s most precious resource then what does society need to do to adequately utilize this resource. He separates young people into categories of income, young people are exposed to high-risk setting more frequently than high income youths. Peter Kelly makes this separation to demonstrate there is inadequate research available on young

(Adam et al, 2000:168) However, because we have made this risk with the devolvement of technology then we are able to understand it better and assume we can measure them. They apply the concept of Actualarism that categorise populations according to risk, with this concept we can measure the risk and the likelihood of them happening and by doing this we can take steps in reducing and avoiding these risks. A fundamental concept in the risk society is that to avoid risk we can distribute the risk which is part of neo-liberalism. This can be seen to be used in everyday life with car insurance companies who charge an individual more money in according to the risk they pose whilst driving .Risk has become a fundamentally commodity in a capitalist society. Risk society means that risk thinking has become normalised for individuals in everyday life, every decision we make we think about the risk connected to it. The rise of individualism has seen that individuals will purchase the best risk protection they can without thinking about the weaker person in society. Hudson states that we now fear crime from one another and because of this we want people who threaten us to be removed from our environment to eliminate the risk, this has been a contributing factor to why society has become more punitive. (Hudson, 2003:45) In the risk society governance is directed at the provision of security and experience of security usually

On the other hand, Beck would argue that we have entered a second age of modernity, and that being concerned with a postmodern society is irrelevant and that we live in a risk society. Beck states that living in this risk society although it can bring negative consequences can also bring good results, so he would say that it is recognised that science can bring a giant risk of disaster into society, but is also something that creates change for member for the better, in saying that through these changes we can understand what should be done to benefit society for the better (if that makes any sense whatsoever).

However, the Action Plan is not likely to produce 9.8 Mt in new reductions by 2020, as the government stated. For example, the government claimed that using Greenhouse Gas Reduction Account funds to subsidize electricity prices which would produce 3 Mt in emission reductions. We found no evidence to support this claim and concluded that subsidizing electricity rates is not an acceptable use of these funds. Fortunately, the government is no longer proposing to divert Greenhouse Gas Reduction Account funds in this way.

This fear inspired by a narcissistic culture has similarities with Ulrich Beck’s theory of modernity. Beck argues that we live in society where risk is prevalent. Most of these risks are manmade and a result of technological development, and the environmental

Beck explains that our society, encapsulated within an era of advanced modernity, is dominated by the pervasiveness of risks. Bell provides an in-depth examination of the relationship and tension between ‘rational’ conceptions of risk and the democracy of knowledge. Rather than a new feature of modern industrial society, Bell argues that the problem of using wording like "risk" represents a modern conceptual language for discussing the age-old problems of uncertainty and control. The modern day thought process in regards to hazards and their risk, is not about the number of hazards we face or the degree of uncertainty but rather the language we use to think and talk about them. Bell titles this as highly rationalistic (p. 238). Bell states

The three foremost approaches related to the idea of ‘risk’ in the 21st century and today’s society are the Anthropological approach, the Risk Society approach, and the Governmentality approach. These three contrasting theories are different in the sociological research they have undertaken, their structure and their main focuses. However, all three have a forefront theorist that has produced evidentiary support and a set of sub theories of how different people view ‘risk’ and different types of risk. When analysing an event, such as the London suicide bombings in 2005,

Beck (2000, 2006, 2007), Bauman (2000), and Standing (2011) constructed this recent concept to explain how old social classes have dissolved in importance to give way to new inequalities, inequalities in risk distribution. Beck even goes as far as calling contemporary societies ‘risk societies’ (Beck, 1992). According to Individualisation theorists, risk is becoming a part of everyday life: through work (i.e. employment flexibility, job flexibility, skill flexibility) (Standing, 2011), education (i.e. greater stress on education and training) (Mythen, 2005), consumption (i.e. risk of climate change, pollution, etc.) or even through the risk of catastrophes (i.e. incidents such as Chernobyl or 9/11) (Beck, 2001). However, through disparities in education, incomes etc., risk is also becoming unequally distributed while giving rise to new inequalities which do not fit into the old class schemas (Standing, 2011).

In contrast to Beck’s theories on risk in society and how it is a method of social control, Michel Foucault instead challenges this stance and puts forward that

"Risk society" means that we live in a world out of control. There is nothing certain but uncertainty. But let's go into details. The term "risk" has two radically different meanings. It applies in the first place to a world governed entirely by the laws of probability, in which everything is measurable and calculable. But the word is also commonly used to refer to non-quantitative uncertainties, to "risks that cannot be known." When I speak about "risk society," it is in this latter sense of manufactured uncertainties. These "true" uncertainties, enforced by rapid technological innovations and accelerated societal responses, are creating a fundamentally new

“ Here is a task truly of, by and for the world, one that should rally nations. The nature of this task however, must be clearly understood; only then can suitable means for accomplishing it be formulated, only then can the role that the United Nations could and should play be appreciated” ( Wilcox/Haviland, 29). There are many international organizations that have been talked about throughout this semester. One of the most important ones is The United Nations. The United Nations was established October 24, 1945, and has since then been impacting the country. The United Nations main purpose according to the lecture notes is “ to provide a global additional structure through which states can sometimes settle conflicts with less reliance on the use of force , for whole purpose of the United Nations is to provide the globe a forum by which countries may settle disputes through this forum peacefully as opposed to relying on a force which has been the case historically” ( Kopalyan, Module 8). Thus meaning The United Nations was set up to handle problems peacefully rather than going to war to try and solve problems. “Powerful economic as well as political forces are at work to bring about a growing integration of the world community, and the United Nations and its related agencies are uniquely fitted to assist in the task” (Wilcox/Haviland,45). This was some of the reason that the United Nations was created.

Sometimes risks related to human health and safety are regulated differently from one policy area to another, we find also many categories of risks highly regulated and other are left to follow the first one. Authors here in this field of study, put the finger on the important points treating the multiplicity of the regimes regulating the risks in different policy area, the forces that structure those regimes and identify the vulnerable points of regulation. To this end, the book develops a concept based on the system of a "risk regulation regime" that provides a comparative description and an analysis of the rules, institutional arrangements and cultures related to the treatment of risks in and between regimes. Using this framework, the

It is impossible to win the great prizes of life without running risks. So it’s needless to say the influence of ‘risk’ in our daily life as well as the business world itself. Well here are different risks and their nature briefly discussed with requisite statements.