Cultures of Energy

On today's special bonus Tuesday episode of the Cultures of Energy podcast, Cymene and Dominic share their election season nerves and then have the chance (9:05) to talk to novelist Fred Stenson (http://fredstenson.ca ) about his recent and moving work, Who by Fire (Doubleday Canada, 2014), which explores the history of oil and gas development in Canada through its impact on two generations of one family. Fred shares his own family's history with sour gas plants, which helped shape certain events in the novel and we talk about the complex legacy of wealth, toxicity and precarity that oil and gas extraction has left in his native Alberta. Fred explains why he wanted the novel to be about trauma and how fossil fueled progress has often been bought at the expense of rural people. But he also explains why he needed to represent the situation in its full complexity, including the efforts and idealism of many engineers working in the oil and gas industry. We discuss the codependence of government and industry in energy development and compare the dynamics of early oil and gas production with today's fracking and tar sands production. We touch on the history of indigenous peoples' relationship to oil and gas in Canada and Fred concludes by explaining why publishers aren't very supportive of novels about oil, which can be both depressing and technical. His point well-taken is that readers need to back up their concerns with curiosity.

Cymene and Dominic define (finally!) professionalism and offer a brief review of Leonardo DiCaprio's soon to be released climate change documentary, Before the Flood. Then (11:43) we are very pleased to welcome to the podcast acclaimed novelist, Amitav Ghosh, author of The Shadow Lines (1988), The Hungry Tide (2004) and The Ibis trilogy (2008-2015), among many other works. We talk about his latest work of non-fiction, The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable (University of Chicago Press, 2016) and why he thinks it has proven so difficult to bring climate change into literature. We discuss the worldview of the novel and how its emphasis on creating believable narratives has excluded precisely the kinds of unlikely anthropocenic encounters that are becoming increasingly frequent across the world. Amitav argues that before an alternate world can become a reality, it needs to become an imaginative reality and this is why the arts are so crucial to coming to terms with the Anthropocene. We also discuss "serious" art's fear of being deemed merely "illustrative" and how this may be linked to a Cold War aversion to the aesthetics of socialist realism. Now, Amitav warns, the world has risen up as a protagonist even as our means of representation aren't up to engaging it. He predicts that the mansions of serious fiction will suffer a similar fate to the mansions of Miami beach as our waters rise. We talk about what is really being denied in climate change denial and how the privileges and comforts of a carbon-fueled lifestyle is something which neither the West nor Asia is prepared to give up. We close with Amitav's own next novel project and how climate change inspires him personally and artistically.

Cymene and Dominic say hello from Copenhagen and muse about the humanities' expanding color spectrum. We then welcome (12:12) to the podcast the fabulous Stacy Alaimo, Professor of English at the University of Texas-Arlington and author of the celebrated Bodily Natures: Science, Environment, and the Material Self (Indiana U, 2010). We discuss her new book, Exposed: Environmental Politics and Pleasures in Posthuman Times (U Minnesota 2016), in light of her thinking about trans-corporeality and ethics in the Anthropocene. Stacy shares her concerns that an abstract sense of species identity and pride is too often smuggled into the Anthropocene concept and explains why she thinks material feminism and feminist science studies have become such important resources for understanding our present condition. We discuss why the turn toward materiality and material agency demands that we engage science in new ways. We talk about the unruly agency of xenobiotic chemicals, deep sea creatures, epigenetics, and how to remake human sprawl to take other creaturely interests into account. Stacy explains that she is not in the hope business but that she does support ecodelics—the mind altering exercise of trying to imagine and feel the Anthropocene from nonhuman perspectives. Stacy's German Shepherd, Felix, kindly helps us grasp this last point and he shares his thoughts on squirrel metonymy and his unease when the postman cometh. The lesson of the Anthropocene? There is no someplace else. So be present for all the species in your ecology, dear friends!

Fresh off her #SXSL White House appearance with Barack Obama and Leonardo DiCaprio, we welcome (10:54) to the podcast this week atmospheric scientist extraordinaire, Katharine Hayhoe, Professor at Texas Tech, and one of the world's most active and talented communicators about the dangers of climate change (http://katharinehayhoe.com). We discuss how climate change became such a highly polarizing political issue in the United States and what motivated her to become a climate scientist in the first place. Katharine explodes the myth that only a certain type of person cares about climate issues and she describes her work with evangelical communities in West Texas to counteract the misconception that climate science is somehow anti-Christian. We talk about climate change as a tragedy of the commons, her insights into the schizophrenic character of oil companies, and about corporate cultures that lose sight of our collective responsibility to each other and to the planet. We compare climate denialism and evolution denialism and Katharine tells us why, in her view, anyone who reads the Bible carefully would be at the front of the climate change movement. We close on her media projects like James Cameron's Years of Living Dangerously (http://yearsoflivingdangerously.com) and her new Global Weirding web series in partnership with KTTZ (http://kttz.org/term/global-weirding). Enjoy!

We talk art and artistic superpowers on this week's Cultures of Energy podcast. Our special guests (9:59) are the celebrated conceptual and multimedia artist Tania Mouraud (http://taniamouraud.com) and Allison Myers, the curator of Tania's new exhibition, Everyday Ogres. The exhibition is composed of three videos, Once Upon a Time, Face to Face and Fata Morgana, which bring to life the immensity and intensity of industrial sites around the world. Fata Morgana, for example, was filmed at an oil refinery in Pasadena, TX, and captures the "invisible death" it sets into motion. We hear the stories behind the making of the videos and Tania explains why she seeks not a documentary process with her work but rather to forge an emotional and sensory connection through our bodies. We go on to cover Tania's coming of age as an artist, why she burned all her paintings that one time, and why she loves to change mediums. Tania and Allison reflect on death and the Anthropocene as muses and we turn toward how the arts engage our environmental situation today. Tania explains why her view of ecology is not reductive; it is about finding new ways of being a citizen in the world. Everyday Ogres will be shown at the University of Texas-Austin Visual Arts Center until December 10th, http://utvac.org/exhibitions/tania-mouraud-everyday-ogres . Please check it out!

On this special bonus midweek episode of the Cultures of Energy podcast, we welcome (10:25) qualitative economist and green energy consultant Dr. Woody Clark (http://www.clarkstrategicpartners.net), author most recently of Smart Green Cities (Routledge, 2016) and The Green Industrial Revolution (Butterworth-Heinemann, 2014). Woody shares his long and varied experience in green technology beginning in the 1990s with his work as Manager of Strategic Planning for Technology Transfer Lawrence Livermore Lab, as a renewable energy and financial advisor to California Governor Gray Davis, and later as a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, co-winner of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. We talk about the United States' missed opportunities in renewable energy development, the coming of a green industrial revolution, why agile energy systems may be more important than energy deregulation, the role of China in securing global energy transition, cap and trade vs. carbon tax, and whether what Woody calls "civic capitalism" could be an antidote to the invisible hand economic thinking of the past few decades. Are we looking at a post-grid future? Is the Chinese state really authoritarian when it comes to its energy planning? How sunny is the future of solar? These questions and more answered right here!

In this engaging discussion, Vanessa Agard-Jones, a Columbia University professor, delves into the concept of chemical kinship in Martinique, shedding light on the lasting effects of toxic pesticides like chlordecone. She addresses the racial and postcolonial dynamics of contamination and explores how these issues intertwine with ideas of political independence. Vanessa also introduces her theoretical framework, emphasizing 'chemical kin/esthesia' and molecular ethnography. Plus, she provocatively suggests that the chemical turn is, at its core, a queer turn that warrants deeper exploration.

Cymene and Dominic compare their ecospirituality on this week's episode of the Cultures of Energy podcast, appreciate the mystical connectivity among all Californians and then Dominic explains the two aspects of Nature that frighten him the most. After all that (10:44) we welcome to the podcast our true spirit guide, Bron Taylor, Professor of Religion and Nature, Environmental Ethics, and Environmental Studies, at the University of Florida (brontaylor.com). We talk about his landmark book Dark Green Religion (U California Press, 2010) and Bron explains the increase in naturalistic and Gaian spirituality across the world today. We discuss the struggle between biocentric and anthrocentric ethics, how collaborations between indigenous and environmentalist movements have helped create green countercultures and we debate Lynn White's thesis that Christianity has helped to accelerate contemporary ecological crisis. We cover the mainstreaming of green spirituality in popular culture, science and media and whether the "dark" in "dark green" also has something to do with violence. Finally, we turn to Bron's most recent book, Avatar and Nature Spirituality, (Wilfrid Laurier U Press, 2013) and discuss what role films like Avatar might play in spreading green spiritual ideas and feelings. Why have most humans been so slow to react to their environmental predicaments? How is Abrahamic spirituality connected to agriculture? Is surfing an aquatic nature religion? All these answers and more on this week's episode!

Until a few weeks ago, most of us hadn't heard about the lawsuit and protest of the Standing Rock Sioux against the Dakota Access Pipeline project. Now the resistance is the subject of national and international media coverage. Still, there is much we do not understand about the history and stakes of what is happening at Standing Rock in terms of Indigenous rights and sovereignty, climate justice, and the struggle for energy transition. By way of comparison, Cymene and Dominic briefly discuss Indigenous resistance to energy projects in their fieldwork in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. Then (11:08) we welcome to the podcast Jaskiran Dhillon and Nick Estes. Jaskiran is a first generation academic and advocate who grew up on Treaty Six Cree/Métis Territory in Saskatchewan. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Global Studies and Anthropology at The New School and author of the forthcoming Prairie Rising: Indigenous Youth, Decolonization, and the Politics of Intervention (U Toronto, 2017). Nick Estes is Kul Wicasa from the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe. He is a doctoral candidate in American Studies at the University of New Mexico, an Andrew W. Mellon Dissertation Fellow, and a co-founder of activist organization The Red Nation. A winner of a Native American Journalist Association award for his writing, Nick's research focuses on the history and politics of the Oceti Sakowin (The Great Sioux Nation), border town violence, colonialism and decolonization, and Indigenous internationalism and human rights. Together we discuss what led to opposition to the Dakota Access Pipeline, the legacies of settler colonialism and empire in the region, and the impact Indigenous youth are having on the climate justice movement. Jaskiran and Nick explain to us why what is happening at Standing Rock is truly unprecedented and why it might give us hope despite how deeply pipeline politics remain invested in traditions of settler violence. Finally, we discuss what they think will happen next and how people wishing to support the resistance can help; for those with the resources to help, donations to the legal defense fund and to support the community can be made at standingrock.org PS special thanks to Audra Simpson for helping to make this episode possible!

It's our back to school episode this week! And to make some of us feel a little better about being back at school, we want to highlight all the good green work that goes on, often behind the scenes, on our college campuses. Dominic and Cymene share their views on the necessity of office space and then welcome (10:40) to the podcast Rice University's chief sustainability officer, Richard R. Johnson, Director of ACSEM (sustainability.rice.edu) and Professor of the Practice of Environmental Studies in Sociology. Richard walks us through the history of the campus sustainability movement and explains why jobs like his these days are more about things like rethinking building design, improving power purchase agreements and getting students engaged in changing the carbon footprint of their campus than they are about recycling. Richard makes the case for the benefits of using less and explains how a shift to solar energy could revolutionize campus life. He shares his mixed feelings about divestment campaigns and discloses what "sustainability" means to him. We close on how to change the sprawl mindset in campus development and Dominic eventually agrees to give up his office in exchange for a coffee card. Does your campus have a frivolous building project that is driving you crazy? Do you want some good ideas for how to make your campus, academic or otherwise, greener? Then this episode is for you!