Skip to main content

Introduction

  • Chapter

Part of the book series: Energy, Climate and the Environment ((ECE))

Abstract

The forester and philosopher Aldo Leopold once wrote that promoting sustainable development was “a job not of building roads into lovely country, but of building receptivity into the still unlovely human mind.”1 This book argues that it’s time to build some receptivity into our minds concerning the immorality and injustice of the decisions we each make about energy production and consumption.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Buying options

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   89.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD   119.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD   109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Notes

  1. Leopold, A. A Sand County Almanac (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press; 1949).

    Google Scholar 

  2. Abramsky, K. “Introduction: Racing to ‘Save’ the Economy and the Planet,” in K. Abramsky (Ed.) Sparking a Worldwide Energy Revolution: Social Struggles in the Transition to a Post-Petrol World (Oakland: AK Press; 2010, pp. 5–30).

    Google Scholar 

  3. Goodman, P. “Can Technology Be Humane?” in A. H. Teich (Ed.) Technology and the Future (8th ed.) (Boston: Bedford/St Martin’s; 2000, pp. 90–102).

    Google Scholar 

  4. Noble, D. F. The Religion of Technology: The Divinity ofMan and the Spirit ofInvention (New York: Penguin Books; 1997, p. 208).

    Google Scholar 

  5. Verrastro, F. and S. Ladislaw. “Providing Energy Security in an Interdependent World,” The Washington Quarterly 2007; 30(4): 95–104.

    Google Scholar 

  6. Davis, S. J., G. P. Peters and K. Caldeira, “The Supply Chain of CO2 Emissions,” PNAS 2011; 108(45): 18554–9.

    Google Scholar 

  7. Vidal, J. “No New Coal-The Calling Card of the ‘Green Banksy’ who Breached Fortress Kingsnorth,” The Guardian, December 11, 2008. Available at http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/dec/11/kingsnorth-green-b anksy-saboteur (accessed: February 1, 2013)

  8. Barbeler, D. “Greenpeace ramps up coal protests,” The Courier Mail (Australia), August 6, 2009.

    Google Scholar 

  9. Sovacool, B. K., S. Dhakal, O. Gippner and M. J. Bambawale. “Halting Hydro: A Review of the Socio-Technical Barriers to Hydroelectric Power Plants in Nepal,” Energy 2011; 36(5): 3468–76.

    Google Scholar 

  10. Abramsky, K. “Some Brief News Reports from Direct Action-Based Resistance,” in K. Abramsky (Ed.) Sparking a Worldwide Energy Revolution: Social Struggles in the Transition to a Post-Petrol World (Oakland: AK Press; 2010, pp. 482–5).

    Google Scholar 

  11. Piller, C. The Fail-Safe Society: Community Defiance and the End of American Technological Optimism (Los Angeles: University of California Press; 1991, pp. 258–9).

    Google Scholar 

  12. Smil, V. “Energy in the Twentieth Century: Resources, Conversions, Costs, Uses, and Consequences,” Annual Review of Energy and Environment 2000; 25: 21–51.

    Google Scholar 

  13. Hall, C., P. Tharakan, J. Hallock, C. Cleveland and M. Jefferson, “Hydrocarbons and the Evolution of Human Culture,” Nature 2003; 426: 318–22.

    Google Scholar 

  14. Sovacool, B. K. The Dirty Energy Dilemma (Westport: Praeger; 2008).

    Google Scholar 

  15. Kohler, B. “Sustainability and Just Transition in the Energy Industries,” in K. Abramsky (Ed.) Sparking a Worldwide Energy Revolution: Social Struggles in the Transition to a Post-Petrol World (Oakland: AK Press; 2010, pp. 569–76).

    Google Scholar 

  16. Goldthau, A. and B. K. Sovacool. “The Uniqueness of the Energy Security, Justice, and Governance Problem,” Energy Policy 2012; 41: 232–40.

    Google Scholar 

  17. International Energy Agency. World Energy Outlook 2011 (Paris: OECD; 2011, p. 2). See also International Energy Agency. Key World Energy Statistics 2011 (Paris: OECD; October).

    Google Scholar 

  18. Ibid.

    Google Scholar 

  19. Energy Information Administration (EIA). An Updated Annual Energy Outlook 2009 Reference Case Reflecting Provisions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and Recent Changes in the Economic Outlook, SR/OIAF/2009–03 (Washington, DC: DOE; 2009, Tables Al and A8). Available at http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/servicerpt/stimulus/excel/aeostimtab_18.xls (accessed: February 1, 2013).

  20. Sovacool, B. K. The Dirty Energy Dilemma: Whats Blocking Clean Power in the U.S. (Westport, CT: Praeger; 2008, p. 17).

    Google Scholar 

  21. Myers, N. and J. Kent. Perverse Subsidies: How Tax Dollars can Undercut the Environment and the Economy (Washington: Island Press; 2001).

    Google Scholar 

  22. Shields, W. M. “The automobile as an open to closed technological system. Theory and practice in the study of technological systems” (PhD dissertation, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 2007).

    Google Scholar 

  23. International Energy Agency. Key World Energy Statistics 2011 (Paris: OECD; October).

    Google Scholar 

  24. Federal Highway Administration, http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/tvtw/tvtpage. cfm (accessed: February 1, 2013).

  25. The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, known as Amtrak, began operation in 1971. Amtrak revenue-passenger miles have grown at an average annual rate of 2.9 percent from 1971 to 2006, rising to 5.4 billion passenger-miles in 2005. Commuter rail grew to about 9.5 billion passenger-miles in 2005, and rail transit passenger-miles grew to 16 billion in 2005 (Davis, S. C., S. W. Diegel and R. G. Boundy. Transportation Data Book: Edition 27, ORNL-6081 (Oak Ridge: Oak Ridge National Laboratory; 2008, Tables 9.10–9.12)). In total, these three rail transportation modes represented 30.9 billion passenger-miles in 2005. At the same time, vehicle-miles per capita grew to 10,082 in 2005 (Ibid., Transportation Data Book: Edition 27, Table 8.2). This amounts to 3.2 trillion miles, based on a US population of 296 million in 2005. Thus, the US total passenger-miles on Amtrak, commuter rail, and rail transit represent less than 1 percent of the total vehicle-miles traveled by US passengers in 2005.

    Google Scholar 

  26. Sperling, D. and D. Gordon, Two Billion Cars: Driving Toward Sustainability (New York, NY: Oxford University Press; 2009).

    Google Scholar 

  27. Olz, S., R. Sims and N. Kirchner. Contributions of Renewables to Energy Security. International Energy Agency Information Paper. Paris: OECD; 2007.

    Google Scholar 

  28. World Bank 2011. Household Cookstoves, Environment, Health & Climate Change: A New Look at an Old Problem (Washington, DC: World Bank; 2011).

    Google Scholar 

  29. Crewe, E., S. Sundar and P. Young. Building a Better Stove: The Sri Lanka Experience. Colombo, Sri Lanka: Practical Action; 2010.

    Google Scholar 

  30. The World Bank. 2012 Data. Available at: http://data.worldbank.org/indica t or / EN.ATM. CO2E. KT?order=wbapi_data_value_2008+wbapi_data_ value+wbapi_data_value-last&sort=asc (accessed: January 23, 2012).

  31. See Biswas, W. K., P. Bryce and M. Diesendorf. “Model for empowering rural poor through renewable energy technologies in Bangladesh,” Environmental Science & Policy 2001; 4: 333–44; Krishnan, R. 2009. “Towards Energy Security: Challenges and Opportunities for India,” Paper Presented to the Emerging Challenges to Energy Security in the Asia Pacific International Seminar (Chennai, India: Center for Security Analysis, March 16 and 17, 2009); Islam, K. R. and R. R. Weil. “Land use effects on soil quality in a tropical forest ecosystem of Bangladesh,” Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 2000; 79: 9–16; Miah, D., H. Al Rashid and M. Y. Shin. “Wood Fuel Use in the Traditional Cooking Stoves in the Rural Floodplain Areas of Bangladesh: A Socio-Environmental Perspective,” Biomass and Bioenergy 2009; 33: 70–8. Kammen, D. M. and M. R. Dove. “The Virtues of Mundane Science,” Environment 1997; 39(6): 10–41.

    Google Scholar 

  32. Brown, M. A. and B. K. Sovacool. “Developing an ‘Energy Sustainability Index’ to Evaluate Energy Policy,” Interdisciplinary Science Reviews 2007; 32(4): 335–49.

    Google Scholar 

  33. See Sovacool, B. K. and M. A. Brown. “Competing Dimensions of Energy Security: An International Review,” Annual Review of Environment and Resources 2010; 35: 77–108; Sovacool, B. K. and M. A. Brown. “Measuring Energy Security Performance in the OECD,” in B. K. Sovacool (Ed.) The Routledge Handbook of Energy Security (London: Routledge; 2010, pp. 381–95).

    Google Scholar 

  34. Sovacool, B. K., I. Mukherjee, I. M. Drupady and A. L. D’Agostino. “Evaluating Energy Security Performance from 1990 to 2010 for Eighteen Countries,” Energy 2011; 36(10): 5846–53.

    Google Scholar 

  35. Goldwyn, D. L. (Ed.) Drilling Down: The Civil Society Guide to Extractive Industry Revenues and the EITI (Washington, DC: Revenue Watch; 2008).

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Copyright information

© 2013 Benjamin K. Sovacool

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Sovacool, B.K. (2013). Introduction. In: Energy & Ethics. Energy, Climate and the Environment. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137298669_1

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics