Beschreibung
The aim of this seminar is to discuss how transitions to new energy technologies may imply a displacement of workloads and environmental loads to countries with lower wages and less regard for the environment. The point of departure is that technology and energy use are not politically and morally neutral phenomena that are external to the interests of social science, but components in societal distribution strategies. This is as evident in the transition to fossil energy in early 19th-century Britain as in the efforts to abandon fossil energy in Cuba after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. In both cases, local conceptions about technological progress can be juxtaposed with its global conditions and consequences. A central question is how the great land requirements of renewable energy technologies relates to the land relief that made fossil energy so attractive in the first place. The issue is of crucial significance to current discussions on climate change and the ”Anthropocene.” (Speaker's abstract)