Book Review: “Total Transition – The human side of the Renewable Energy Revolution”

By Marula Tsagkari The book Total Transition: The Human Side of the Renewable Energy Revolution offers an in-depth look at the social and environmental impacts of the current fossil fuel energy system, and calls for a renewable energy transition, which takes into account the needs of those communities that have been most affected by this …

We need to talk about robots

By Paul Robbins. A political ecology of robots is due, one that is rigorously empirical, dedicated to justice and animal welfare, but unromantic in every regard.

Sustainable integration? Nexus thinking and the foreclosure of progressive eco-politics

by Joe Williams The water-energy-food nexus has become a powerful framework for sustainable development that seeks to integrate the management of resource sectors for increased efficiency. However, its current mobilisation is fundamentally de-politicising, overlooking the contradictions and injustices of resource governance The water, energy and food sectors are, of course, deeply connected. Agriculture accounts for …

Climate politics in the long run

By Romain Felli*.  Stephen Schneider’s 1976 book The Genesis Strategy offers a stunning preview of contemporary debates over climate policies.   According to philosopher of science Bruno Latour, the rise of climate scepticism in public debates reflects the lack of political engagement from climate scientists. He argues that, having restrained themselves to a discourse of …

Weaponizing nature

By Patrick Bigger and Benjamin Neimark*  Military excursions into low carbon fuels is not a case of military greenwashing but rather one of ‘weaponizing nature’, an approach perpetuating an interventionist US foreign policy linked to environmental change. If we ever think about the military as environmental actor, it is most likely related to the damage …

The challenges of doing engaged research

By Remy Franklin* How can we make our research relevant while navigating the politics of scientific neutrality? Reflections on the ethical and methodological messiness of practicing engaged geography. It was a morning in early May when I opened my computer to find an email back from the Institutional Review Board providing comments on my application …

A political ecology of EU energy infrastructure: The Shannon LNG Terminal in Ireland

By Patrick Bresnihan* Insights from the development of a Liquefied Natural Gas Terminal in Ireland illustrate how energy provision is always embedded in wider networks, which connect geographies, finance, state and private interests. Opposition must not just focus on the point of extraction, but on the wider political and economic relationships that enable certain forms …

Energy struggles: combating energy poverty in Catalonia

A diverse range of social and environmental collectives have come together in the past few years in Barcelona to form the Alliance Against Energy Poverty, successfully mobilising and fighting to stop energy and water cuts for families unable to pay their bills.* Household access to energy and water remains an urgent issue for well over …

‘Green’ development and democracy? Hydropower in Northeast India

Hydropower projects, disguised and depoliticized as green and sustainable, are being imposed as a development solution across the Himalayas. The dam conflicts presented here illustrate how civil society groups have become political actors, rising up against assaults on democracy.* Source: NHPC. Climate change has set an imperative for economies around the world to revise their …

The other Balkan route

A group of 'kayaktvists' from all over Europe recently paddled 390 km of Balkan rivers, in an exciting and creative expression of protest against the looming 'dam tsunami' on the peninsula.  Six countries, 23 rivers, 390 river kilometres: on Friday, May 14, a very unique activity ended in the Albanian capital of Tirana – the …