A Utopian Failure: The One-Tonne Challenge, Climate Change and Consumer Conduct

Abstract

The object of this study is a program of government that has, as its immediate objective, the modification and regulation of consumer conduct deemed pertinent to climate change. Drawing from the analytical grid and conceptual tools of governmentality, this study has organized and analyzed an archive of documents related to the One-Tonne Challenge, a ‘public education’ program implemented by the Government of Canada from 2003 to 2006. There are numerous forms of conduct targeted by this program, involving many of the mundane and routine practices of everyday life. Despite their heterogeneity, the targeted forms of conduct can all be measured and evaluated according to the greenhouse gas (GHG) inventory, an ecological technology of government that has had its application extended to the ‘personal’ level. As consumers increasingly engage in practices that are energy efficient, a ‘low intensity GHG emission lifestyle’ will emerge as a new societal norm, which is declared to be the ‘ultimate strategic objective’ of the program.

The analysis indentifies and describes two rationalities of government articulated within the archive of the program. Liberal principles and assumptions regarding the market economy are ascendant in practice; they delimit the range of governmental techniques that can be put into operation by the state. Nevertheless, the objectives and technologies of this program belong to an ecological rationality of government. It problematizes the liberal emphasis on ‘voluntary action’ and advances state planning of the market economy through price formation as a necessary governmental technique with which to manipulate the demand for energy and ensure that consumers become energy-efficient. The conclusion interprets and diagnoses the main dangers that could arise from the radical transformation of the market economy that would be brought about by an ecological political reason.