Claws & Teeth: The Militarization of Nature

Securing accumulation by restoration – Exploring spectacular corporate conservation, coal mining and biodiversity compensation in the German Rhineland

“…:terra nova illustrates the ecotourism–extraction nexus that will be explored further in the next section. The windmills (Figures 6 and 8), lastly, represent a different kind of ‘progress and modernity’ in times of energy transition and climate change, thus simultaneously serving as compensation measures for the mine while concealing the equally, if not more ecologically disastrous mining operations and displacement required elsewhere for the resources necessary for these windmills (Dunlap and Brock, forthcoming; Dunlap and Jakobsen, 2019; Sovacool et al., forthcoming). In her analysis of the Chilean political economy of energy and mining, Furnaro (2019) argues that renewable energy investments should be understood as ‘socioecological fix’ through which ‘new appropriations of nature are used to alleviate the threatened accumulation process of its energy-intensive mining economy’ (2).…”

“…In her analysis of the Chilean political economy of energy and mining, Furnaro (2019) argues that renewable energy investments should be understood as ‘socioecological fix’ through which ‘new appropriations of nature are used to alleviate the threatened accumulation process of its energy-intensive mining economy’ (2). They point to the recent nexus between conventional and green extraction technologies that allow for allegedly ‘green’ extractivism (Dunlap and Jakobsen, 2019). The positioning of renewable energy in the service of fossil fuel extraction illustrates what we have elsewhere called the ‘renewable energy-extraction nexus’ (Dunlap, 2018; Dunlap and Brock, forthcoming), effectively illustrating its function as ‘Fossil Fuel+’, securing the continued legitimacy of coal, rather than providing a real alternative.…”