INQ-271 | Energy & Culture-Global

Full Title: Energy Transitions: Culture, History, and Environment

Topic Description:

National and religious leaders, international NGOs, and researchers have all called for a transition to greener energies to mitigate the threatening consequences of increasing population, consumption, and climate change. But how do we get from here (avg. US households using 11,000+ kwH/year, primarily from non-renewables) to there? To answer this practical question, this INQ course seeks to answer several questions of culture and environmental history: How are energy use and overall quality of life related? What forces shaped past energy transitions? How are energy use and choice shaped by culture? Europeans use about 2-3 times less energy per household than US households, despite similar lifestyles and comparable systems of government. Why? We will study how past societies substituted oil and gas for wind and animal power, for example, then hydro and nuclear for coal-powered electricity. What cultural factors are driving the surge in non-conventional oil and gas development in Canada and Australia? Finally, what might a culture of sufficient energy look like?

Counts as Global? Yes

Topic Approved: December 2016