Keynote speech   "Science, Technology and Environment in East Asia" at Yonsei Univ.May 21, 2001, 9:15-9:50at Asian STS Workshop at Seoul
Shigeru Nakayama

STS is abbreviation of so many combinations of words. “Science, Technology and Society” (or in another recent usage “Science and Technology Study”) in our present sense came into being in 1970s among British teachers movement “to teach science in social context (at the time it was abbreviated to SISCON).” They claimed their movement originated in the second edition of Thomas Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolution. (1970).

Although John Ziman joined their STS meetings, most of members were teachers rather than scholars. I once attended their annual meeting and found their language of heavy Cockny accent rather than Oxbridge English that I was more familiar with. They were mostly teachers of polytechnic, originated in lower class, in contrast to high science Cambridge. They claimed to introduce SISCON or STS into high school teaching. Their ideology was radically critical to establishment, if not subversive.    

I wrote Kagaku to Shakai no Gendaishi (A Contemporary History of Science and Society, 1981) to deal with a decade after 1968. Most of STS-related problems appeared in the early half covered by the book, such as campus revolution, anti-pollution movement, anti-war movement, environmental thought, critical science, alternativism, great cultural revolution, all of which has now confluenced into Global Environmentalism. The book was translated into Korean during the military government days. I was wondering how it could be possible, since my writing and the subject STS involves lots of critical viewpoints. According to Prof. SONG, Sang-Yong, it was one of the early attempt of democratization movement.

From pollution to environment

From the outset, Koogai (pollution) was one of major subject of STS. The word Koogai was internationally employed as Japanese Minamata case was well disseminated among those concerned at the time of 1972 Stockholm Declaration. Japan was recognized as one of most “advanced” polluted country. Typical was Minamata case where the pollution originated in a corporation and victims and radical militant supporters worked together to change the trend and even value system of the days.

While the peak of anti-pollution movement was reached in the early part of 1970s, there was another new wave arrived in the late 1980s. This is called Chikyuu-Kankyoo (global environment). At the summit meeting of G7: Korbachov claimed to discuss global ecology as a substitute of cold war issues. The political leaders who returned home from G7 ordered to take up seriously the global environment issues so that their country could win in international competition in environmental initiatives. Accordingly, National laboratory of Pollution changed their title to National Laboratory of Environment. Such a global subject was better fitted to national laboratory rather than local pollution laboratory, as it is a global issue to find out CO2, acid rain and deforestation of rain forest with the aid of remote censing.

There followed two important epoch-making events. One is 1992 Brazil summit, where NGO appeared as radical promoter of global environmental causes. Another is Kyoto Protocol adopted at the third session of the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC (COP3) in Kyoto in December 1997. Both events highlighted the activities of environmental NGOs on news media.

We can make a contrast between them as follows in Japanese case:

Japanese issues of 70s and 90s in comparison

Recycle though as connecting pollution and environment

There was some abrupt discrepancy between the above two phases. Those activists who fought for environmental cause in the earlier phase were suspicious at the time of transition that polluting corporations intentionally hided their vice under the pretext of globalism. Whether hided or not, it is true that the local pollution was gradually replaced with more global concern of environment in the course of time.

We may find something in the thought of recycle that links pollution and global environment. In IT Society, production becomes cheaper as numerical controlling and roboting gets widely available while disposal remains labor-intensive and hence becomes increasingly costly.  Thus, waste disposal and recycle becomes everybody’s concern as a threat to everyday life environment and widely diffused the concern to global environmentalism among citizenry.

My understanding of STS is not a consistent methodology but a problem area. Accordingly, STS deals with different topics in different perspectives in ever-changing world. In the 1970s, concerned scientists and citizenry were urged to the serious effect of war, pollution, and energy crisis; STS was expected to meet such pressing needs. In 1990s STS took up problems of global ecology in globalized perspective while recycling thought became firmly rooted and thus wider audience and participants of STS-related topics in students and citizenry sectors would contribute towards establishing STS as a university discipline of 21^st century cosmology or world-view.

What we can do as Asian STS?

We may be able to take up something transnational environmental problems. In the 1960s there was a discussion whether Japan was exporting pollution to Korea by technology transfer of shipbuilding technology. There are issues of acid rain common to Asian vicinity. Just like the pollution of the Rhein encouraged in uniting toward European Community, we East Asian STS could deal environmental problems as something in comm.

We shares certain concepts in common Chinese characters not known in English, such as Koogai, Chikyuu-Kankyoo etc. We may be able to coin new unique STS concepts born here and export them to the world.