Социологическая наука и социальная практика (Dec 2014)
Complex Dangers and Risks of Modern Mainline of Oil Transporation
Abstract
The authors proceed from the fact that modern mainline of oil transportation represents a fundamentally new network transport of a complex type exercising the mobility of goods that is stretched in the spatial and temporal coordinates and functioning in “timeless time”. This is the basis of their approach to the interpretation of the complex dangers and risks of its operation. Seven groups of threats are investigated: 1) complex geographical conditions caused by permafrost soils, prone to the formation of fields thawing in places of mainline of oil transportation; 2) objective threats arising from climate turbulence; 3) high socio-environmental vulnerability of the regions; 4) threats associated with the effects of dyschronous time; 5) new social tensions arising from economic selfishness of transnational companies; 6) threats in the form of modern terrorism; and 7) staging of threats. These threats encourage people to make this or that choice and make a decision based on a number of managerial and / or technological alternatives, that is, to risk. Modern risks are of increasingly complex character as they are essentially vulnerable to threats. All authors distinguish two categories of risks: the risks associated with external threats (the choice of optimal monitoring system, involving not only the assessment of external threats to the mainline of oil transportation but also internal dysfunctions pumping oil resources) but also man-made risks caused by increasingly complex scientific, technical, economic, political, environmental, and other human activity on the operation of the mainline of oil transportation. Among them, there are risks caused by the breaking of the “former national sovereignty” and risks blurring the continuity in the development of traditional and innovative technologies. The authors also include in the manmade risks ones associated with the syntheses of society: there appeared the coexistence of previously antagonistic values and cultures in one set of space-time coordinates, prompting the search for tolerant interactions among the actors interested in ensuring the energy security of Russia and the world. Finally, the authors analysed the risks of increasingly complex dynamics, in which gaps and syntheses of socio-techno-ecological reality occur simultaneously, affecting both social and humanitarian spheres of human activity.
