The United States and Alternative Energies since 1980: Technological Fix or Regime Change?

Nye, David E.

doi:10.1177/0263276414537314

Cited by 10 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…Historians of technology further emphasize that historical energy transitions were associated with wider socio-economic transformations. David Nye, for instance, concludes that historical energy transitions "were not merely substitutions of one energy source for another but reorganizations of society, including transportation systems, population distribution, and the organization of work" 29 . Hirsch and Jones further suggest that historians can contribute to energy research by drawing attention to "social and political impediments that designers of new technologies frequently cannot imagine" and to "the social context in which people create, deploy, and use technologies" 30 .…”

Section: Text Box 1 About Herementioning

confidence: 99%

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Bridging analytical approaches for low-carbon transitions

2016

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Low-carbon transitions are long-term multi-faceted processes. While integrated assessment models (IAMs) have many strengths for analysing such transitions, their mathematical representation requires a simplification of the causes, dynamics and scope of such societal transformations. We suggest that IAM-based analysis should be complemented with insights from socio-technical transition analysis and practice-based action research. We discuss the underlying assumptions, strengths and weaknesses of three analytical approaches. We argue that full integration of these approaches is not feasible, because of foundational differences in philosophies of science and ontological assumptions. Instead, we suggest that bridging, based on sequential and interactive articulation of different approaches, may generate a more comprehensive and useful chain of assessments to support policy formation and action. We also show how these approaches address knowledge needs of different policymakers (international, national, local), relate to different dimensions of policy processes, and speak to different policyrelevant criteria such as cost-effectiveness, socio-political feasibility, social acceptance and legitimacy, and flexibility. A more differentiated set of analytical approaches thus enables a more differentiated approach to climate policy-making.

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Section: Text Box 1 About Herementioning

confidence: 99%

“…This means that many IAMs neglect the role of organisational, social and business model innovations in low-carbon transitions. Most IAMs also pay limited attention to the co-evolution of energy technologies and wider contexts, which historians highlight 29,30 .…”

Section: Analytical Challenges For Integrated Assessment Modelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bridging analytical approaches for low-carbon transitions

2016

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“…Considering that systemic transitions can take 40 or more years to develop (Arthur 2011, Nye 2014, radically alternative, novel development pathways are required to transition current systems (energy, food, transport etc.) to more sustainable trajectories of production and consumption.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using futures methods to create transformative spaces: visions of a good Anthropocene in southern Africa

Pereira¹,

Hichert²,

Hamann³

et al. 2018

E&S

146

120

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ABSTRACT. The unique challenges posed by the Anthropocene require creative ways of engaging with the future and bringing about transformative change. Envisioning positive futures is a first step in creating a shared understanding and commitment that enables radical transformations toward sustainability in a world defined by complexity, diversity, and uncertainty. However, to create a transformative space in which truly unknowable futures can be explored, new experimental approaches are needed that go beyond merely extrapolating from the present into archetypal scenarios of the future. Here, we present a process of creative visioning where participatory methods and tools from the field of futures studies were combined in a novel way to create and facilitate a transformative space, with the aim of generating positive narrative visions for southern Africa. We convened a diverse group of participants in a workshop designed to develop radically different scenarios of good Anthropocenes, based on existing "seeds" of the future in the present. These seeds are innovative initiatives, practices, and ideas that are present in the world today, but are not currently widespread or dominant. As a result of a carefully facilitated process that encouraged a multiplicity of perspectives, creative immersion, and grappling with deeply held assumptions, four radical visions for southern Africa were produced. Although these futures are highly innovative and exploratory, they still link back to current real-world initiatives and contexts. The key learning that arose from this experience was the importance of the imagination for transformative thinking, the need to capitalize on diversity to push boundaries, and finally, the importance of creating a space that enables participants to engage with emotions, beliefs, and complexity. This method of engagement with the future has the potential to create transformative spaces that inspire and empower people to act toward positive Anthropocene visions despite the complexity of the sustainability challenge.

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“…Key challenges in the US are the lack of reliable renewable energy policy instruments, unstable and unpredictable support frameworks for renewables at the federal level, as well as the ease with which policy reforms can be blocked at various veto points. In spite of this, the US has in some areas been surprisingly effective in reducing its greenhouse gas emissions beyond the OECD average over the last decades (Nye, 2014).…”

Section: Decentralized Energy and The Electricity Escape Routementioning

confidence: 99%

Energy and the Anthropocene: security challenges and solutions

Froestad

Shearing

2017

Crime Law Soc Change

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This paper explores the role that energy regimes, and the search for energy security, has had in shaping humans and their societies, and the effects thereof. Energy enrolments through the domestication of plants and animals and the extraction and burning of increasingly energyrich fuels enabled humans to build ever more productive and formidable societies, but also more complex and divided ones. Social stratification, combined with the new risks caused by the more intense interactions and entanglements that emerged between humans and nature, has culminated in the global environmental crises that humans are now facing. We conclude by arguing that an escape route from the destructive consequences that fossil fuel energy regimes have had for humans and their ecological security is provided by the emergence of electrical civilizations and the potential this provides for integrating energy and ecological securities.

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The United States and Alternative Energies since 1980: Technological Fix or Regime Change?

Cited by 10 publications

References 21 publications

Bridging analytical approaches for low-carbon transitions

Bridging analytical approaches for low-carbon transitions

Using futures methods to create transformative spaces: visions of a good Anthropocene in southern Africa

Energy and the Anthropocene: security challenges and solutions

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