In this author's note, Sibo Chen introduces his new book, Energy Politics and Discourse in Canada, and its argument about the rise of "progressive extractivism" in Canada. By exploring the conflicting narratives that have shaped the politics of natural gas extraction in British Columbia, Chen shows how progressive rhetoric often masks resource extraction and underscores the multifaceted challenges inherent in balancing the economy, the environment, and Indigenous rights in a fraught energy landscape.
Alevgül Sorman explains how researchers are using the concept of "social metabolism" to trace how societies process energy at different scales. This body of research shows that we can draw parallels between the benefits of balanced and healthy diets for bodies and societies alike, in which an intake of less does not necessarily mean we are worse off: it can be a pathway to better (social) health.
Andreas Roos' new book, Solar Technology and Global Environmental Justice: The Vision and the Reality, is both a sober critique of techno-optimistic visions of solar power and a call for “realistic envisioning.” In this Author's Note, Roos discusses the moment he realized that the current structure of solar energy has a darker side, as well as his hope that the book will inspire communities to explore better ways of harnessing solar energy to create new social metabolisms.
In the second of a two-part series on Racial Capital by emerging researchers, Shouhei Tanaka (Postdoctoral Scholar, University of Southern California) explores how Chickasaw writer Linda Hogan’s novel Solar Storms (1995) fictionalizes the James Bay Cree hydroelectric conflict and places it in the longer histories of North American settler colonialism. For Tanaka, energy modernity is a history of empire and the future of energy must necessarily be a future of decolonization.
In the first of a two-part series on Racial Capital by emerging researchers, Marah Nagelhout (PhD candidate, Brown University) traces the convergence of ecological remediation and the carceral logic of reform in the "toxic prisons" built on or near environmental sacrifice zones around the United States. For Nagelhout, "these volatile containment infrastructures are expressions of a primary contradiction of capitalism that arises from the structural necessitation of waste in the value form of capital itself."
Barbara Leckie writes about her new book, "Climate Change, Interrupted," and reflects on how many different kinds of breaks in time gave rise to this book and renewed her sense of the larger possibilities that ruptures in time might offer.
Achieving net-zero is a complex process beset by many challenges. Writing about the Canadian context, Temitope Onifade, a legal scholar and instructor in climate law and policy at the University of British Columbia, explains the need to develop and apply a "low carbon justice" approach to the actions that Canada takes to reduce its carbon emissions. If it doesn't prioritize justice, Onifade argues, Canada will once again fail its most vulnerable populations.
In this author's note on his new book, Pipeline Populism, geographer Kai Bosworth explores the challenges of forging the kinds of broad and effective political coalitions required to achieve a just and sustainable future.
Rural communities are often hit hard by climate change but face significant barriers in mitigating its effects. Enock Mac'Ouma describes a project of the UNESCO Chair on Community Radio for Agricultural Education at Rongo University, Kenya, which uses community radio to accelerate rural education and technology transfer in a particularly vulnerable region.
As our society transitions to new forms of energy, our social and cultural stories will also change. Derek Gladwin explores how the energy humanities provide a useful framework for understanding and speaking about our individual and collective energy stories.
In the recent U.S. elections, Louisianians voted overwhelmingly for Donald Trump and against subsizing polluting industries. Casey Williams explains how to understand this result and what it could mean for the future of fossil fuels.
Developed by the Transitions in Energy, Culture, and Society (TECS) project and the Petrocultures Research Group, energy humanities features commentary on current developments in energy and the environment, announcements and news items, and video interviews with influential and emerging voices on energy & society. This site gathers some of the most exciting and important insights humanities researchers provide about the social nature of our environmental crises.
