The risk society: the case of central heating system in Lithuania

Abstract

The aim of the article is to reveal the processes of risk formation which creates concrete hazards for the Lithuanian society, by analyzing one of the most problematic aspects of energetic system – central heating system. The article tries to show how the society became a hostage of the energetic system under different periods of modernization. The first part aims at analyzing how it came that the centralized heating system (which at the time was considered as “progressive”) today causes great discomfort for a bigger part of the country’s population. The second part analyzes the phenomena of organized irresponsibility, which reveals the paradox of risk society (by describing the dual nature of the risk – creation of the risk and avoidance of political responsibility), that explains why this very well known problem has not been solved out so far.