Timescapes of Modernity: The Environment and Invisible Hazards

Time is the invisible other that works outside and beyond the reach of our senses. Thinking of the environment as a timescape allows us to see the hazards of an industrial way of life. The invisible becomes tangible and we begin to recognize processes that work below the surface until they materialize as symptoms - sometime, somewhere. This text focuses on time to facilitate a deeper understanding of the interactions between environmental, economic, political and socio-cultural concerns. Barbara Adam argues that environmental hazards hazards are inescapably tied to the successes of the industrial way of life: global markets and economic growth; large-scale production of food; the speed of transport and communication; the 24 hour society and even democratic politics. Introducing a timescape perspective, the author dislodges taken-for-granted assumptions about environmental change, enables reformulation of environmental problems and their cures and provides the potential for strategies to deal with some of the most severe environmental hazards of our time.